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Use this guide to optimize your Google My Business listing and to get better search visibility on relevant queries on Google for your business.
Google My Business is a free tool that helps business owners manage their online presence listings across the search engines on Google through the GMB profile, including Google Maps.
To all the businesses who have their websites ranked on search engines, make sure that they must claim their business on Google My Business.
Having a Google Business Profile is the first step towards local SEO.
A Google Business profile is a crucial thing for local business exposure.
Google My Business is primarily considered a local SEO which is a part of online digital marketing, which requires you to work hard to rank your GMP profile in the top listings of local SEO.
Navigate to:
Google Business Profiles: The basics
Starting Your Google My Business Profile
Verifying Your Google My Business Profile
Making Your Google My Business Profile Public
Photos & Videos for Your Google My Business Profile
Insights from Your Google My Business Profile
Google Business Profiles: The Basics
To have your business on GMB, first, you have to make your Google My Business Profile, and a lot of information is needed to find a specific company like:
- business address
- Business Hours
- Category
- Reviews
Google utilizes a verified Google My Business listing. If someone searches for anything relevant to your keywords, then Google shows that listing in the top searches.
When a new Google My Business profile is created, a Google Maps location is generated.
It certainly helps that the majority of searches are on worldwide search engines.
It also shows the value of the GMB profile and effective local SEO.
Use this guide to ensure that you have made your GMB profile entirely, and then optimize it with all possible facts.
A Google My Business profile will also give you more leverage for your business on Google and third-party platforms that use the Google Maps API to generate user location information.
If digital marketing is somehow a new endeavour for you, then you must have basic knowledge of things that play a vital role in marketing.
And it’s good to have known about Google My Business and the value it creates for your business.
First off: Yes, creating a Google My Business profile is free.
And, no, your GMB profile doesn’t replace your business’s website.
Google Business Profiles complement a brand’s existing identity by giving it a public presence with a profile on GMB.
The information businesses provide on Google My Business profiles can appear in Google search and on Google Maps.
Third-party platforms that use Google Maps will also display your Google Business Profile regardless of the device type used for your search.
Previously, Google My Business, Google Places for Business, and the dashboard of the Google+ page were the best places to manage your business on different platforms.
These have entirely, or we can say, automatically upgraded to Google’s universal platform, Google My Business.
Starting Your Google My Business Profile
The first step is to get your GMP profile, conduct a Google search, and ensure that your business doesn’t have a claim already.
To have your business listed on Google My Business, you can use Google’s in-platform search feature to locate your business listing.
Let’s say your business has been around for several years and already has a profile on GMB. It would help if you claimed it.
Once you’ve successfully claimed your business, you can manage your listing information as if you started the GMB.
It will notify you if you already have your profile listed on GMB.
Google also notifies you if someone else has already listed your business on Google My Business.
If, by any chance, that happens, then follow these steps.
If your business is not listed on Google My Business, you can set it up pretty quickly.
Verification takes a bit longer to complete when you are listing your business. Sometimes it will take a week to verify your profile.
Start building your business profile before entering other important information.
Then enter your primary business category.
You can also change and add to this later, but it is a critical part of optimizing your brand page.
Make sure that you find the category that is relevant to your business.
There you will find a lot of variations in the category to choose from, and you have to find the best and most accurate one that is relevant to your business.
You will also be asked if you want to add a location so customers can visit your office or store.
If you add a location, it will be more convenient for customers to look into your store or office.
Please select the service area(s) that pertain to the business for those businesses that operate in specific areas and do not want their locations to appear on maps.
After this, you can add the content details of the business, including the contact number and the website URL.
Next, you can enter your business location: city, state, zip code, etc.
Once you have set your address, Google Business Profile will ask you if you want to service customers outside of this location.
You can specify where and how the company physically goes to provide goods and services.
If so, you can walk through the exact service-area business details.
You can also add or change the service address anytime you want.
If you don’t service customers outside the location, select no, then input contact details on the following prompt.
After that, you can click next to verify your business profile listing.
Verify your Google My Business profile.
After creating your GMB profile, you must verify your Google My Business listing. Verifying your business through the mail takes up to five business days.
It proves to Google that you can manage your listing and represent the business you claim. Verifying your Google Business Profile is very crucial. It will have an impact on your profile,
or else your performance will increase.
It’s vital to verify your business. If you don’t verify your listing, then Google won’t display your listing. You also can’t edit your listing until it’s verified.
Without verification, you cannot check your insights or analytics, or you don’t even have access to get reviews from the backend. The verification process will take less than a week.
To check whether your business is verified or not, Google will send you a notification code that you will use to verify your business, and your business will go live.
After you have completed the verification of your business, you can add additional information about your business, including business address, business hours, business messaging options, a business description, and photos.
Making Your Google My Business Profile Public
Once you complete the verification process, you can go to Google Business Manager, where you can manage your business profile and make changes or modify your details.
Here I have listed some crucial tips for optimizing your profile.
- Complete Your Profile Information
Local search results serve you with the most relevant results, so being at the top of the search engine result page matters the most.
Businesses that provide the most accurate and relevant detailed information about their products and services will have a better chance of ranking in search engines.
Don’t leave anything to guess or assume about your business.
Having an organized profile on GMB will give you more visibility for your business.
Make sure your profile will indicate what your company does, where it is, and how people can acquire your business’s goods and services.
- Include Keywords
Just like when we do website SEO, we have to include our primary keywords so that Google uses various signals to serve search engines.
Likewise, in GMB, we have to include our transactional or primary keywords so that Google uses a variety of movements to help search engines.
Including our important or transactional keywords in our business profile will help users find our business, which is listed on GMB.
Use keywords in your business description, too, so anyone can easily find your business whenever you post a local post.
- Keep Business Operating Hours Accurate
It is essential to mention your business hours so that anyone can get a clear idea about the time at which you are available.
But it’s equally important to update your business hours whenever you change them.
Google allows you to customize hours for business holidays, occasional holidays, or any events.
Ensure you are also updated with your accurate business profile; it will help you engage more with your audience.
Note: Additional hours won’t show in your business profile until you set regular hours.
- Add Photos
Adding photos will increase the visibility of your business profile.
Businesses with photos will have a chance to receive 42% more requests for driving directions on Google maps. Adding pictures will give you more visibility for your business profile.
You will also acquire 35% more click-through rates to their website than businesses that don’t have photos in their business profiles.
Keep reading for more GMB photo tips below.
- Manage and Respond to Customer Feedback
Interacting with your customers by responding to their reviews will add significant value to your business.
The more your business adds value, the more you will get visibility and reach for your business.
Positive reviews on your profile will positively impact potential customers when they are searching for your business.
They also increase your visibility on the search engine result page (SERP).
Encourage customers to give feedback by creating a link so that they click on it and write reviews for your business.
- Allow Customers to Message You
It can be not very pleasant, but customer interaction is only available from the Google Business Profile app.
To do this, tap Customers > Messages > Activate from the App. When enabled, customers can use the message button that appears to send a message from their business profile to their business.
Incoming messages can include custom autoresponders that welcome customers with incoming messages.
This is useful for business responsiveness and visibility because the response time is not very long.
Keeping response times to less than 24 hours is essential for maximizing GBP’s performance and transparency.
But, of course, faster is better.
Customers don’t want to wait for a reply, so a quick response is often the difference between a customer and a non-customer.
Insights from Your Google My Business Profile
Google has made great strides with the analytical data readily available for Google Business Profiles over the past few years.
Google now provides businesses with a different way to comprehend how customers interact with business profiles through Insights, including:
- How users discover your profile.
- Where clients can locate you on Google.
- Customer behaviour.
- requests for directions, telephone calls
Final Thoughts
We hope you enjoyed our blog about optimizing your Google My Business Listing.
We know that there may be a lot of essential data about your business that Google My Business does not display, so we have provided a list of all the information you need to edit to optimize your listing.
Suppose you have any tips or questions. Thank you for reading. We hope you have a successful re-optimization and can start building traffic and leads to your business.
