Get Seen with Google My Business
Did you know that 1 in 3 Google searches has local intent? This means that millions of people look online for a local cafe, personal trainer, beauty salon, photographer etc. If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, Google will play a crucial part in helping customers and clients discover you locally.
What are the benefits?
It’s free marketing: Yes thats right, you don’t have to pay a penny to be listed with this marketing tool. A complete, verified, and optimised Google My Business listing allows you to connect with your ideal customer and be found in more ways than ever before.
Build trust: Naturally customers will leave reviews if they’ve had a particularly good (or bad) experience with your business. Building up a bank of positive reviews will help potential customers decide whether or not to use your services or not so it’s important to encourage customers to leave a good review if they’ve had a great experience with your business. Respond to reviews and share on other channels.
Helps your customers and clients find your physical location: Theres nothing more frustrating when trying to find a business location and not being able to do it with ease. Listing your location means it will be marked on the map, making it easy for your customers to follow google directions to reach you via the knowledge panel.
Increases your search visibility: You may have noticed when searching for other businesses a larger panel appears with a map and business listings. A complete, verified and optimised Google My Business listing will increase your chances of landing in one of these top spots and even better yet giving the user one-click to viewing your website or making an enquirey.
Displays helpful information: A Google My Business listing gives you a place to include helpful information to your customers such as a business description, hours of operation, busy periods, images and directions. You have the option not to list all of these if they are not relevant.
Gain customer insights: The Insights tab in Google My Business will offer you a wealth of analytics so you can measure up and monitor your listings audience with visibility, engagement and audience being the core sections. You can use these analytics to improve your profile.
Gain website traffic insights: Whilst the Insights tab looks at traffic to your Google My Business account, the Google analytics tool provides a more in-depth look at your website traffic and will provide you insights on that specifically.
How to set it up
01. Set up a new Google Account. If you already have one go straight to google.com/business
02. Click Manage Now. Follow the steps below or the prompts Google gives you.
03. Enter your business name
04. Enter your business location. If you don’t have a physical business address where customers visit you, you can leave this blank and tick the box ’hide my address‘
05. Specify service areas. If you have multiple areas of operation you can list them here. For example we have both Chattanooga and Thame/Oxford listed as core service areas.
06. Choose your business category
07. Add contact and website details
08. Get verified. You can get verified via a postcard, phone or email verification. We chose postcard because who doesn’t love getting mail?!
09. Optimise. Once you’re verified you are all set to get optimising your Google My Business!
Tips for optimising your Google my Business profile
Provide as much information as possible
Make it easy for customers and clients to contact you and find your location
Update your profile regularly to keep it up to date and relevant
Add images to help tell your story
Take advantage of category specific features
