A new client who signed up with me in 2024 required some initial SEO work to improve the visibility of their website.
Context and Background
Copper Beech Trading are a small but very forward thinking order fulfilment and third party logistics business. They started off during COVID when their previous toy and gift supply business suddenly lost all demand: as businesses and schools were closed in the initial lockdowns. A rapid pivot saw them take on the order fulfilment role, for a number of small companies around them up here in the northwest.
Their success in managing order fulfilment, gifting and gift hampers for larger corporate businesses, saw them regaining traction that they feared would be lost. Most of that new business had been won on the back of extensive networking online, as the zoom culture boomed – and by referral from multiple satisfied customers.
There were many issues to be resolved with the original website and their digital presence, including very thin content on the originally self-built website. There was a complete lack of local listings and back links. There had been some social media activity going on and a small amount of press coverage had come about as they announced their success and the need for new premises.
However visibility was extremely poor, with the website only being discoverable for its full brand name keyword “Copper Beech Trading”. Copper Beech – the usual short form of the brand name – only showed results for the synonymous tree. This applied locally, even for searches from nearby places such as Settle or Carnforth. The business’ ambitions to be a national player were not being fulfilled!
Success Brings Its Own local SEO Problems
The company had created a Google Business Profile, but it had been suspended when I first began working with them. On the plus side, the hard work put in by director Katie Tyndale was generating business. Due to the success of their tendering they had secured a large, well known client, whose brand was synonymous with a Lake District icon of the woolly kind! This meant that Copper Beech Trading had had to move premises to increase the storage space for the much larger volume of goods being packed and shipped on behalf of the new client.
Of course, changing your address and location can cause all sorts of issues in your local SEO. In this particular case Google business profiles AI driven, verification function had refused to accept their verification videos. For those who are new to Google business profiles or are contemplating a move, there are a couple of things to be aware of when trying to verify your profile on Google.
Preparation For Verification Of Your Google Business Profile
For a new business we recommend that you set up other listings first: for example; Yell, Brown Book, Cylex, Hot Frog, Central Index, Foursquare and Thompson Local. It is also wise to check that your new address is listed correctly on your website as well as on these common directory sites.
Readers might be very surprised to know how many business owners fail to verify and use their correct postal address!
You may also ask why we complete several minor listings before we attempt to create a Google Business Profile or a Bing Places listing? Experience has shown that Google looks for corroboration of your business being a real entity, before it will accept your GBP. Having your business listed in some of the standard online listing sites helps provide that supporting evidence.
A couple of years ago, Google would pretty much accept your business listing without too much checking. A GBP could be verified, usually by postcard sent to that address, or by phone. With the advent of artificial intelligence and its integration into so many back end systems, almost everyone is forced to upload a video showing a specific set of features and documentation. Google’s AI then seems to match it with imagery from Street View to locate the building and its approaches.
This AI moderated video verification process has proven to be a bit of a nightmare for many people. In many cases people go through the process as instructed, but technical issues stymie the process. This is what had happened to my client. One of the staff had tried multiple times to carry out a video verification but on each occasion the upload had failed and the person in question was not aware of what the problem was.
Another important preparation is to make sure that your video camera on the mobile device that you will use is set to a fairly low resolution, in order to create a video file that is not too large to upload to the Google business profile servers.
Finally, make sure your phone is able to access any wifi that is in the building as uploading over your own data connection can often be far too slow, in these rural locations: that the upload fails.
Even The Best SEOs Get Tripped Up By Video Verification
An amusing aside comes from Darren Shaw of Whitespark in Edmonton, Canada, They experiment a lot and share their results… and their bloopers! This video is a blooper rescued. It also gives you a fantastic rundown of a lot of the parameters that you need to adhere to. For SEO – it’s actually quite amusing! Not many videos you can say that about in this line of work!
The Solution: Site Visit By a Person With a Google Account That’s Trusted – That’d be ME!
To help my client get their Google profile verified, I agreed to travel down to Kirby Lonsdale to help out. The setting of this business in their new premises poses its own issues.. They are not actually in Kirby Lonsdale (or Carnforth as their postal address suggests), but some distance up a B road close to a village called Barbon. The premises are set back some 200 metres from the public road. Additionally, when the client’s own staff were trying to do it themselves the new signage had not been installed by the roadside. This only came to light just before I travelled down.
Google Business Profile Verification Process and Requirements
Google has set up a verification process that is fairly straightforward for the typical business in a town. For businesses in rural settings this can be trickier. As described above, this business was set back from the road and this interfered with time taken for the the process.
You need to be an administrator of the Google Business Profile with full access to it and use the Google Maps app on your phone. To begin verification you search for your business in maps and you will see a prompt to verify the business listing, if you are an administrator.
The process has to start by the public road or within sight of the public road and within sight of any landmarks that Google’s Street View has identified. Once you start videoing, the process has to be continuous from the roadside all the way through to office and administrative areas within the building. Ideally, you will be able to see some street signage or the signage belonging to other businesses that are already verified.
The next step is to continue the video sequence by picking up your own external signage followed by moving towards the entrance of the building and seeing keys actually unlocking the door. This step is essential to show that you do have control of those premises.
Order packing in progress
As you enter the premises it is important to show equipment, products or tools of the trade as you enter deeper towards the office space. Within the office space or admin area you need to have ready documents that identify your business and branding and are consistent with your website and the data added to your Google business profile information. These might include headed notepaper with the branding logos and colours and the address, business cards, flyers and even utility bills that identify you as the occupying business.
One thing to avoid, is close-ups of individual people’s faces. It is helpful if the video shows people hard at work so long as you don’t dwell on individuals for too long. The other thing to avoid is showing documentation that might break the rules on GDPR and privacy.
The real kicker though, is that this all has to be accomplished within two minutes at most and with a video file that is no larger than around 80 MB.
How Did We Successfully Verify Copper Beech Trading’s GBP?
In this instance it turned into a three person job. The manager drove the van, I sat in the van with my mobile phone, while another staff member stood ready at the door of the premises with her keys ready to slot in and open up.
We drove out to the road and pulled in about 100 yards away from the entrance where there was some clear signs showing local towns and villages. Making sure the road was clear, we set the video in motion and drove slowly and steadily towards the roadside signage and the entrance to the premises. I made sure to catch a clear view of the signs identifying Copper Beech Trading and as we swung into the driveway I framed a clear view of the premises up ahead as we approached.
The van pulled up at the entrance where the second member of staff had her back to us as we focused on 1st the signage in the window and then the keys opening the door. As I walked in I videoed the logo on the staff shirt, trying not to get the person’s face in the video. Next I trained the camera on the shelving and some products that were in the process of being packed up into orders.
Walking through that packing area I went into the office where we had laid out business cards, some flyers, a brochure and a bill which was addressed to the company but where the sensitive data was hidden by the other paperwork. I also walked on through, into a second packing area where another member of staff was at work fulfilling other orders. At that point I stopped the video recording, held my breath, remembered to check that the Wi-Fi connection was active and then pressed the button to upload.
Luckily with the help of those two very friendly staff members we managed to drive, walk through and film all the signs and required items within one minute and 24 seconds. 5 days later we found that the upload had been accepted and the profile had been restored fully.
Tips To Avoid Rejection by Google Business Profile AI
- Set your video to a relatively low resolution: On my Galaxy Android device I used the Pro Video setting and scaled the resolution back to HD30 using the top menu.
- Ensure external signage is clear and not obscured by anything.
- Log on to the building’s own Wi-Fi before starting – it will almost certainly be faster than your phone’s data connection.
- Make sure you have paperwork for the business: e.g. Registration certificate from Companies House if a limited company, brochures, business cards, headed notepaper, uniform workwear with branding, set out on a surface away from sensitive information.
- Plan your walk through (or drive through if there’s a long driveway) so that you can show external landmarks or road signs, the entrance door with keys used to unlock the premises, work areas with products, tools or equipment, the administrative area and the aforementioned paperwork and branded items.
- Keep the walk through less than 2 minutes in length.
- Shoot the video continuously from start to finish, avoiding any faces if physically possible.
- If the distance from roadside to office can’t be covered within that timeframe, use other staff to drive the videographer along driveways and another member of staff to do the opening up.
Things to Avoid
- People’s faces
- Personally identifiable data (GDPR)
- Sensitive documents that expose commercially valuable information.
- Stopping and starting the video.
Final Word
Now that we have got Google to accept the new address we anticipate seeing Copper Beech Trading begin to improve visibility. Alongside the process described above, we have started work on producing much more explanatory copy for the website, that describes the many services and the benefits of working with Copper Beech and their staff.
So if you are searching for a 3PL partner to handle order fulfilment for your ecommerce or Amazon distribution, look out for Copper Beech Trading, based in Barbon but serving Britain!
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