An industry figure that has worked with Rightmove, ESTAS and Feefo has launched a new business in a bid to boost Google visibility for property companies.
Today, Ben Marley has formally debuted his new business, GeoCale, which is offered on an exclusive basis by town- meaning that once a conveyancer is onboarded as a client, no other conveyancers in the town will be able to use the service.
GeoCale provide specialist digital services which help conveyancers, prop-techs and other businesses in the residential property sector to optimise their Google Business Profiles.
The company says their services ‘make it easier for their Google Business Profile to be found on Google’s local and map searches’.
Talking about the reasons for launching GeoCale, the industry figure explained: “Businesses in our sector spend significant amounts of money, in many cases thousands of pounds per month, on pay per click (PPC) and search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns to generate website traffic.
“However, if their Google Business Profiles are correctly optimised, they can rank higher in local Google searches organically, which significantly reduces the need for paid adverts to generate the same amount and quality of traffic.
“These monthly savings on marketing spend can make a considerable difference to profitability or can be reinvested into other areas of the business.”
The GeoCale website which also launches today, offers a free business profile report which provides an immediate snapshot of how well any website is performing against local competitors, based on current levels of Google profile and website optimisation.
Alongside saving ‘significant amounts of money’ by generating ‘organic’ traffic, Marley’s product will help firms feature in the ‘map pack’ on Google, something the property pioneer says receives the lion’s share of clicks when potential customers google companies.
Marley continued: “For example, Google quotes that 50.2 per cent of searches result in a click, of which the ‘map pack’ on Google and the top three Google profiles within it receive as many as 44 per cent of these clicks.
“Because the ‘map pack’ is the most engaged area of Google, it’s that essential businesses who want to attract local customers ensure their Google Business Profiles are as best optimised as possible.
“This means that they will feature within the ‘map pack’ as a result of being the most relevant business based on the Google search performed by the consumer.”
Mr Marley has already been interviewed by Christopher Watkin for the ‘Watkin sofa’, where he talks about his career in the property industry to date and the challenges that businesses within the property sector face in terms of ever-escalating digital marketing costs, together with his vision for GeoCale.
Mr Marley concludes: “Every time someone searches for a service, Google looks at over a million results in under a second and presents three companies in the map as the most relevant businesses to the searcher.
“This is why it’s so important that a business’s Google profile is optimised and relevant for Google to select its profile as opposed to its competitors and is exactly why I’ve founded GeoCale; to help businesses improve their profiles so they can be seen more, get more clicks, and attract more customers.”
Previously the Commercial Director at the ESTAS Group, Mr Marley has spent over a decade in the residential property sector, earning him a ‘strong reputation for digital marketing strategies and expertise’.
Prior to that, he held senior positions at Rightmove and Feefo, where he was a trailblazer in the early days of online reviews for estate agents.