Digital Marketing, SEO

Have you got a Google My Business Profile?

June 9, 2022

Having a Google My Business (GMB) profile is like having your own mini-website. GMB offers businesses a fantastic opportunity to appear in the Google search results pages. The best thing about it is IT’S FREE!!

What information can I include on my Google My Business page?

It allows you to include also sorts of information about your business such as:

📍 Gives your location in maps

Every day, literally billions of people use Google to search for a whole load of information — a local coffee shop, local vet, home repair tips, fashion trends, celebrity news, car garages, and so much more.

With GMB, you appear in Google Maps search results.

When searching for a business inevitable, your search will result in a Google advert appearing 1st, followed by a series of map results.

Take a look at our search for local car garages. You’ll see the map result with the garages pinned on the map. There are huge benefits for this as it’s highly visible and right at the top of your search results – now everyone wants that.

Appearing right at the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is imperative for someone finding your business within the local area as it tells them:

Where you are located on the map
How far away they are from you
Provide directions
Gives your contact number
Link to your website
Your opening hours
Google review star rating

⏰ Business hours

It allows you to list all of your business hours. Your business hours can sometimes differ, or you might have special hours. You have the ability to tailor these in your GMB listing.

🗒 List your products or services

The ability to include all of your products and services here is brilliant. You can list all of your products or services, and they become searchable on the results page.

Take this search for Solid Wood Flooring; because Solid Wood is listed as a product on their page, Google is ranking them in the local maps results.

So the more products and services you add, the higher you’ll rank in the SERPs.

📸 Adding images of your business, your products, staff and videos

You may have already added your logo and maybe the exterior/interior of your business – but you shouldn’t stop there. Post as many images as you can because, as above, it delivers your listing higher in maps or local search results. Plus, it shows your business’s personality and shows you’re active and not stagnant.

🗞 Share your news

Think of Google my Business Posts like a social media post. When posting on your social channel, you should also post your news as a GMB post. You can include all sorts of information.

In GMB Posts, you can influence actions that you want people to take once they have read one of your posts, such as getting your target customers to visit your site, to purchase something, to call you or read more. CTA buttons are ideal to direct people to take an action, leading to an increase in your website traffic.

Visits to your GMB post mean they want or are looking for something and you have delivered their intent. As a result, the referral traffic coming from your listing has more value compared to the one coming from search results.

Monitor results. You can do some a/b testing with a number of products, with different CTA urls and monitor people’s actions once they click on your posts.

You can create or build upon your email list. Put your CTA to a form to collect data and sign them up – then you can deliver a range of offers, useful information or tips.

GMB Posts are a great way to up to date and relevant content regularly whilst helping your long term SEO strategy.

🎤 Create an event

Got an event you want to shout about? Create a listing on your GMB account. Tell everyone where it is, what time it’s on, add an image and away you go. It’s live on the website for people to find it locally.

✅ Manage reviews

Google reviews are like gold! Businesses are very much based on reputation. Reputation is a key factor when it comes to people deciding whether or not to use your services. So, if you’ve got good google reviews, people are more likely to get in touch with you. Google reviews also help you rank higher in the SERPs.

So, don’t be shy – asking and collecting reviews is imperative. If you don’t ask, you don’t get – it’s the same with reviews. You can make this process easy by sending your customers a link for them to write the review (whether they’ve got a Google account or not). Oh, and don’t forget to respond and thank each person that’s left you a review – it shows you’re super nice.

But what about if you get a bad review – our advice is to respond to them. Whether it’s a good or bad review you should respond, it’s good practice. It shows any prospective customers that you’re on the ball, and you’re serious about their experience of your business, thus building trust. Finally, you can use your reviews as an opportunity to get better as a business, learn what people like and what they don’t like and improve upon it. Reviews are valuable data to a business.

Local directory

Having a Google My Business account improves your business’s local search visibility and allows you to be found in Google’s search results.

More and more search queries are becoming geographically specific. Google knows this; therefore, they have developed its algorithm to consider the users’ intent and deliver results based on relevance, distance, and prominence, providing the best match for your search.

Here’s an example: Google will decide that a business that’s farther away from your location is more likely to have what you’re looking for than a business that’s closer to your location; it will therefore rank it higher in your local results. Google’s done all the hard work for you – Result.

Results

You can delve into the GMB Insights and learn more about how customers find your business.

Discover what keywords people search to find you, insights on calls, how many people visited your website, your reviews, bookings and directions. All of the data allows you to understand how your business connects with customers.

Look, there’s a lot to digest there. We can help set up and optimise your profile.

Just give us a call on 01527 597682, or email info@cm-ventures.co.uk and we will get the wheels in motion.

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