Google My Business 101: Everything You Need to Know!

Google is one of the leading & wide-reaching search engines available on the internet today. Typically, a consumer searches for service providers or vendors on a search engine such as Google. That is when Google displays a list of businesses that might support the service/product searched.

The listing usually contains a contact number, address, photos, business hours, and sometimes a link to the website as well. This is your Google My Business listing. Listings are one of the best mediums for a consumer to find out about your business, especially if you are a local business. An online listing is probably the most important asset any business can own to get more customers.

You can create your free Google My Business listing if you do not have one already. Although sometimes, you might find that a listing for your business might already exist. In that case, you can “claim” the listing as your business listing and edit the details. The listing is then available on Google Maps, Google Search and Google Shopping enabling customers to find your business.

What can you gain out of a Google My Business Profile?

Improve Local SEO

Having a Google business profile helps improve local SEO and allows you to control your contact and business information and update it timely. This means it will improve the chances of your business showing up in a search when customers are looking for you on Google.

You can also post updates on your profile to share that you may have expanded your business, temporarily closed, or have limited business hours.

Updated profiles rank much higher in local SEO than those that are out-of-date. Another great way of improving local SEO to improve your business is to include keywords that might help consumers find your business.

Build Customer Trust Through Reviews

Once your Google My Business profile is set up, consumers will most definitely review and/or rate your business if they have used your products or services. Customers trust people more than they do businesses, so encourage existing customers to review your business on Google at the end of the purchase/service. All the positive as well negative reviews will help potential customers in making a purchase decision for your products/services. Reviews will also help in improving your business ranking on Google.

How to Optimize Your Business Profile

A successful business profile on Google is determined based on relevance (how well does your listing match to the searcher’s search) , prominence (how well known and well-reviewed your business is) and distance (how far it is from the searcher’s location).

A profile can be improved by using appropriate and most popular keywords that are relevant to your product/service, which would help rank your listing above other businesses when someone searches for your business.

It is also important to ensure that all elements of your profile are complete.

Here are some of the key things you can do to improve on all three factors:

1. Verifying your location so that the business location is easily findable on Google Maps
2. Ensuring that customers are prompted to review and rate your business so it can score higher in local SEO, 
3. Uploading real images of your products/businesses