Google My Business: Overview
Google My Business can help your business site appear quickly within the search results when people search for your niche online. It is a great marketing tool, and best of all it’s totally free. This tool is also a crucial element for local SEO. This is why the listing, must be accurate and up to date.
There are several reasons for any business to set up a GMB account. First of all, it makes your business discoverable online. Google acts as a great referrer. When someone looks for your company on Google Maps and Google Search, GMB makes it happen.
It also updates your customers about the business. You can put essential information like business location, contact details, and others that customers need.
Top Tip: It’s better not to leave this information to review sites of which you have no control.
Your Google My Business profile also has the ability to boost the credibility of your business. Customers are 70 percent more likely to visit an online business if it has a GMB listing. Another study also revealed that businesses that have complete listings on Google are twice more likely to be trusted by customers.
Setting up Google My Business
The steps to setting up your Google My Business are simple. It starts with creating a new Google account. Then go to google.com/business. Try to enter your business name. If a business already exists that has the same name as yours, you will be automatically given suggestions. If you have a brick and mortar shop or engage in any face-to-face interaction with customers, ensure to include your business location.
You have to specify your business areas or areas where you serve. Area codes or post codes are important. Doing this will enable Google to show your business for searches in these areas with or without a physical location.
Next Up: Choosing the business category. This is highly important since it can influence the kinds of search terms that Google will show your business profile within. It’s also smart to test this when you update your Google business listing.
Adding your contact phone number and site URL gives your customers quicker access to your business along with the ability to call directly from the search results. This is not compulsory, but it’s beneficial for your business to take advantage of the GMB functionalities such as call tracking. If you update this on your GMB listing, don’t forget to update your other listings too.
You can complete the signup by verifying your account through either of these three ways: phone, email, and postcard.
Optimising Google My Business to help with SEO
Once your GMB account is officially verified, it’s time to optimise it. There are several things to be done which include:
- Adding photos and videos to the listing
- Adding a captivating business description and Q&As, creating GMB posts to feature business offers and promotions
- Adding service menus and product lineups
- Requesting and managing Google Reviews
Google My Business App
The Google My Business app is an easy tool to stay on top of your reviews, and updating the business hours, especially important over public holidays and special occasions. The app is also an easy way to post status updates and photos as well as to view insights.
Tracking Results:
Google My Business Insights may also be used for finding out pertinent information like the number of people who visit the business site, the number of people who searched for driving directions, the number of people who called, and the number of people who viewed the photos posted.
Setting up a GMB account is just one of the SEO strategies that you can use to promote your local business. If you want a more comprehensive SEO package for promoting your business, digicowebsites.com has support packages to suit. 1768 Degrees is a design and development agency that has been in the business for years and is part of the 1768degrees.com family.
