I would assume it does. 

I have been testing keyword specific campaigns on GMB without any of that content on a website. The website is showing those keywords in the data. I would assume any links to those campaigns would pass some juice. 

It does not help. Many have tested this and determined it is not an effective or impactful tactic. It’s a waste of your time and money. Link to your website, not your GMB listing. SterlingSky published the results of their test here: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/gmb-backlinks/

Along similar lines... what about when people create a silo structure with GMB posts-- somewhere in the body of the copy linking back to the previous GMB post. Any benefit?

That's pretty cool.  I imagine it works pretty well as a hook to get agencies and SMBs more interested in the rest of what they have to offer.  

Hey, thanks for sharing! Yep, Phil is THE MAN when it comes to this topic. So much great advice shared in this video.

Subscribe to Phil's newsletter, so full of good stuff!

I watched this video a little over halfway through. While the topic matter is sound and the tactics are good I went to several of the sites. I wasn't too impressed. A quick scan and the sites were busy, hard to pick out what to do easily, common SEO and UX were messy.

What did you all think? 

After spamming the name field with keywords (which you should not do), I think the easiest win is with categories. A lot of businesses just pick their primary and don't add others. Adding all the additional categories that are relevant for your business will cast a wider net and get you ranking for terms you weren't ranking for before.

This isn't optimizing the listing itself per se, but within the realm of GMB, I'd say spam hunting is a little overlooked.  The easiest way to move up is if the competitor above you is violating the guidelines -- using a virtual office, operating out of a residence, really obvious keyword stuffing (doesn't match legal name or anything on website).

Suggest an Edit can be deflating when it rejects your edits, but there's also the GMB Redressal Form, which allows you to provide more info, and actual humans look at the input.

I think people sometimes shy away from spam hunting because it can feel like a sisyphean task when spammy listings pop back up.  If you can establish an efficient reporting process, however, I think it's worth the time invested.

Agree with Zach. Fight any spam that's outranking the listing for core terms. It's the easiest tactic in the book for moving listings upward in visibility.

Awesome!