How to Optimize Google My Business Listing
Setting up and maintaining a regular pattern of activity on a Google My Business account is the cornerstone of online marketing. Thanks to it, you can promote your business, appear on Google Maps and be ranked higher in the local search results.
Table of contents:
- What is Google My Business?
- What are the Google My Business Listing Benefits?
- How To Set Up Google My Business Listing? A Step-By-Step Guide
- How to Optimize Google My Business Listing? 9 Tips
- Google My Business Listing Optimization – The Takeaway
Google My Business listing can make a huge difference when it comes to small businesses and towns. Keep reading to discover why it’s worth taking your time to create a Google My Business listing and how it can benefit your company, and the SEO process!
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business is a free tool that enables modifying the way your company is displayed in the search results and on Google Maps. Thanks to this professional listing, you can build relationships with customers, update important information, list your products and services, accept online orders, increase your recognition, attract new buyers, and more.
Who Can Use Google My Business?
If you’re wondering who can benefit from Google My Business listings, the answer to this question is pretty simple. Virtually all industries and enterprises that want to boost their visibility, recognition, and conversions.
Regardless of whether you’re a beautician, a hairdresser, a hotel, or a restaurant owner, Google My Business is for you if you know that being present online is crucial to succeeding in today’s world. Any entrepreneur working from headquarters should highlight the location on Google Maps. It’s an excellent marketing opportunity for companies without a cutting-edge, fancy or well-optimized website, and unlimited budget.
Apart from benefiting entrepreneurs, Google My Business listings help potential customers who can:
● check contact details of local businesses,
● get precise driving directions,
● share company’s details with other users,
● write a review or a comment and ask for a reply from the business owner,
● send direct inquiries,
● quickly dial the phone number,
● view the business’ photo gallery and publish new images (which is particularly helpful in the case of e.g., restaurants),
● suggest profile information changes,
● easily enter the homepage.
What are the Google My Business Listing Benefits?
As we’ve already mentioned, Google My Business listings can bring numerous benefits both to consumers, and companies. The greatest advantages include:
Visibility on Google Search & Maps
If you run a small, local business, a listing displayed at the top of the search results, or a company shown on Google Maps gives you a great chance to reach potential customers, and let them know about your activity. All this can be done without investing significant amounts in marketing, Google Ads campaigns, or SEO. You can achieve great results and improve your recognition thanks to setting up a Google My Business listing which takes less than five minutes.
Reviews
As customers, we like to know something about a company before choosing its services, or products. Every Google My Business listing includes a section with reviews where former buyers or visitors can comment on offered products or services.
Apart from increasing your credibility among people who come across your brand for the first time, reviews are a powerful tool that can encourage people to choose your company. After all, there is nothing more effective than word-of-mouth marketing.
GMB Insights
Having a Google My Business listing means that you can also obtain valuable information about your company and its online activity. As stated by Google:
Google My Business Insights focuses on how customers find your listing on Search and Maps, and what they do after they find it.
The Insights panel includes various pieces of information that can help business owners make informed decisions and tailor their strategies to the behavior and expectations of potential customers.
In the panel, you can find information concerning:
- The number of views of your listing,
- The location where users found your listing,
- The actions customers take when they encounter the listing,
- The way users interact with your GMB listing.
Such data is a valuable source of knowledge thanks to which you can quickly refine your marketing activities to achieve even greater results.
Improved SEO
When determining local rankings, Google robots take into account numerous factors, among which the most important ones include:
- Distance, meaning how far your business is from the user who entered a particular query into the search box,
- Prominence, meaning how active your listing is. Here, it may be about the number of photos, reviews, links, or the quality of your content. Although this factor still remains a bit of mystery, it can undoubtedly be stated that nobody chooses websites, and companies that don’t provide any valuable information,
- Relevance, meaning how much your listing and offer correspond to the search intent of the user. If your company provides exactly what the customer needs, the chances are that your listing will be displayed in top positions.
As you can see, apart from advertising your company, and helping you to attract new customers, quality Google My Business listings support SEO.
ROPO – Research Online Purchase Offline
Have you ever researched a given product online to check its price, or reviews before actually buying it in a brick-and-mortar store? If so, you aren’t alone and probably most of us act this way.
Although online shopping is gaining enormous popularity, it’s worth remembering about offline sales and their potential. Instead of worrying that customers don’t finalize transactions the first time they visit your website, encourage them to come to your regular store.
A Google My Business listing is a great way to gain a competitive edge over your market rivals, both online and offline.
Thanks to being displayed high in the search results, people interested in online shopping are likely to enter your website. Positive reviews written by your former customers may encourage those doing the initial research to choose your offer once they’re ready to make a purchase, or to visit your brick-and-mortar store to learn more, touch, and see the products, try them on, or talk to you in person. The possibilities are endless, that’s why it’s crucial to keep in mind that online marketing doesn’t have to benefit solely your online business activities.
How to Set up Google My Business Listing? A Step-By-Step Guide
If you’re just taking your first steps as an entrepreneur, or you’ve never heard about Google My Business listings, the process of setting up your account can seem a bit overwhelming. Don’t worry! We’re here, ready to help you.
To create your Google My Business listing:
- Set up a Google account that is preferably related to your business and includes your domain, or company name. This way, you’ll position yourself as a professional.
- Go to https://www.google.com/business/, and click the Manage now button.
- Fill in your business name.
- Provide the location of your headquarters. If your company doesn’t have a specific location, select I deliver goods and services to my customers, and then hide your address.
- Determine your service areas. Think about the optimal distance around your business location.
- Choose your business category from available options. If more than one is applicable, select a phrase that describes your company best.
- Enter your contact details such as a phone number, and website address to ensure that potential customers can easily communicate with you.
- Finish the process, verify, and claim your listing. If you have problems with setting up, and optimizing your Google My Business listing, contact our specialists to get a free quote and learn how to refine your marketing strategy.
And voila! Your Google My Business listing is ready!
How to Optimize Google My Business Listing? 9 Tips
Want to give it a go and optimize your Google My Business listing on your own? If so, the following tips may come in handy during the process:
- When setting up the listing, provide your actual brand name and details,
- Choose an accurate category to increase your chances of conversion,
- Provide all the necessary information that may have an impact on potential customers,
- Double-check your phone number and website address,
- Analyze your opening times, take into account weekends, and holidays,
- Refine uploaded photos to ensure that your listing includes only top-quality images,
- Set up profiles on highly-ranked business directories to obtain valuable backlinks to your website, and to increase its authority,
- Benefit from structured data to make sure that information in your listing is consistent with your website,
- Make sure that all the information is relevant and up-to-date.
Google My Business Listing Optimization – The Takeaway
Google My Business is a quality tool that allows you to easily create a listing that may actually translate into greater impressions, conversions, and profits. If you run a small business dedicated mainly to local customers, setting up and optimizing your profile is a great way to promote your range for free.
