When customers look for local services, you as a local business owner want to make sure that your organization shows up on their screen. You must optimize your Google My Business listing if you want to achieve this. One of Google’s free features, Google My Business, helps you boost the exposure of your business by displaying all the pertinent information to locals in search results. We will go through all the fundamentals with you in this article.
What is Google My Business?
You can post your company’s photographs, address, services/products, and any other pertinent information using the free business listing function known as Google My Business (also known as Google Business Profile). You will boost your company’s visibility and the likelihood that it will show up in Google Search, Google Maps, and other Google services by creating a profile. However, in order to open an account, your company must operate out of a physical location (like a restaurant) and offer services in person.
Businesses of all sizes can benefit from Google My Business. The ability to control your online presence and draw clients who are looking for your business on Google search and maps gives you a competitive advantage.
An additional benefit of having a Google My Business account is the ability to post images of your goods or services, access and modify your company’s details (such as name, address, and hours), and reply to customer reviews. This will improve the visibility and interaction of your company over time.
Given that Google My Business is free, there is no excuse not to take use of all the opportunities it presents to develop your company. The sole prerequisite is that your company must have a physical address.
What justifies Google My Business’ significance for local SEO?
The following are the top 5 reasons why your company requires a Google My Business profile:
1. Boost the visibility of your business and your search ranking
Your company’s search ranking and overall visibility can be significantly increased by adhering to a good Google My Business SEO checklist.
Google advertising is displayed first, followed by Google’s local 3 pack, and then organic results when a potential customer uses comparable keywords to search for the goods and services your company provides.
Making the top 3 local results on Google Maps and local finder is more likely if you have a Google My Business page, which will increase your company’s exposure and lead generation.
2. Improves Your Support and Engagement with Customers
As we previously mentioned, having a Google My Business profile will allow you to address both positive and negative comments and questions about your goods and services with greater promptness.
Additionally, customers prefer to do business with companies that are simple to get in touch with, so having your contact information readily available makes it simpler for them to call you with a query or a complaint.
3. Up the volume of sales and traffic
Considering that 28% of local searches result in purchases, it is obvious that having a Google My Business account can increase traffic to your website.
Naturally, those who are looking for the goods or services your company provides are more likely to visit your website to find out more information. They are also more likely to succeed in a goal when given a strong landing page and CTAs.
4. It Aids You in Reaching a Larger Audience
Without running advertisements, it would be challenging to draw in and keep the attention of a larger audience without having an updated Google My Business profile.
5. Becomes a Business Authority for Your Brand
The reviews have a positive effect on your company’s appeal to potential customers. A 4.7-star rating, for instance, indicates that your company is excellent at what it does, and as a result, customers are more likely to purchase from you.
8 Ways to Optimize Your Google My Business Account for SEO
You’ve undoubtedly come to the conclusion that it’s crucial for your local business to have a Google My Business presence by now. In order to rank higher in local searches and appear in the local pack, you’ll need to do more than just create a profile for your business. So, what can be done to improve Google My Business listings to rank higher in local searches or have a better probability of appearing in the local pack?
Here are 8 SEO tips that are suggested in the Google My Business SEO Checklist.
1. Check Your Company
You should validate your company with Google first, before taking any further action.
Here is a quick recap of what we have covered in one of our earlier headings.
Once the account creation procedure is complete, Google will give you a four-digit number to the address you specified in the business data.
Simply visit the specified link after receiving the code and enter it there. Google will formally post your updated profile after receiving confirmation from you that your local company is real.
2. Complete the fields in your profile.
It’s time to complete your profile once your business has been verified. While several of the sections are optional, several of our respondents stressed the importance of including all pertinent information. It’s best to provide all the information that is requested.
Your company’s name, address, phone number, website link, and categories are the most crucial Google My Business profile information to include.
But you shouldn’t forget to provide other information as well, such as a description of your service region.
3. Make sure your profile information is accurate and remains that way.
It is not sufficient to merely complete the fields on your Google My Business profile. You must also ensure that all the information is true and remains accurate.
Add your holiday hours as necessary, as Casey Bryan of Grand Cru Digital advises, to maintain your profile current and correct.
This can be quite essential, especially if your business listing indicates that you are open on Sundays but when potential consumers visit they find that you are closed.
By doing this, you lose sales and credibility for your company.
4. Maintain NAP Consistency Online
Just making sure your Google My Business listing is accurate is still insufficient. Furthermore, you need to confirm that it is consistent with all of the important local directories on the internet.
NAP, or name, address, and phone number stands for the information that is most crucial.
You run the risk of receiving a penalty from Google if it determines that your address or phone number on your social media page and Google My Business profile are different.
One suggestion from Travis McGinnis of Vye Marketing is to incorporate a Google Map on your website’s contact page. “For companies with many locations, use the same NAP information and map embed on each location page on the website,”
5. Choose the Categories That Are Most Relevant
Selecting the appropriate service categories was one of the items on our respondents’ Google My Business SEO checklist that they mentioned the most.
Google’s choice of whether or not to show your local business in an organic search is significantly influenced by this feature.
One primary category and nine secondary categories are available when selecting one. Every industry can find a match among the 4,000 options.
6. Incorporate amateur photography
According to Tandem Interactive’s Juliane Sunshine, having photos is among Google My Business’ most crucial features. As straightforward as it may seem, the picture for a Google My Business listing is crucial.
“Make sure your images are semi-professional; the higher the quality, the better, for improved rankings. Have interior and outside shots taken… Any minor element can aid improve ranks on a Google My Business listing, according to Sunshine.
7. Get more evaluations
You should concentrate on collecting as many reviews as you can after setting up your Google My Business profile completely.
Reviews not only increase the visibility of your profile on Google Maps and the search engine, but they also affect the click-through rate.
The following are some options for you:
- Create a plan for reviewing.
- Make sure the reviews you write are truthful.
- Put quality before quantity.
- Answer your reviews.
8. Use Google posts to your advantage
Did you know you could build interactive posts with GMB that show up in search results?
This includes content that is published in articles and blogs on your website, as well as particular occasions like courses and promotions.
You may boost user engagement and drive a lot more traffic to your website by writing a post of excellent quality.
Here are some tips from our survey participants for creating such posts:
- Publish at least 10 articles.
- Regularly include fresh content.
Conclusion
You require a Google My Business profile if you engage in any kind of physical touch with clients.
It is essential that you create and optimize your digital presence given the volume of online local business searches.
There is simply too much information to track down and analyze, even though knowing how to improve a Google My Business profile isn’t very difficult.