So you’ve got your business up and running, and you’d like to start creating your Google My Business (GMB) listing so customers can find you when searching online. Unfortunately, you just don’t have the time to sit down and figure out exactly what you need to include in your business listing. By all means, as professional business marketers, we use GMB too.
In particular, for our official website presence so as to enjoy all it’s unique services and solutions support for a variety of reasons. For instance, when people search for your business on Google, they may see links to your business’s social profiles. That’s in addition to your other business information in the Knowledge Panel through Google Search Results.
And, for your information, Google gathers business information from a variety of sources. Whereby, it may include it to give customers a more detailed overview of your business. Furthermore, social profile information is automatically added to listings for eligible businesses. So, if you haven’t claimed or added your business to Google My Business yet, why not try it?
As such, we strongly recommend you first go and add your business to GMB by visiting https://business.google.com/ to get started for free. After all, you can follow us till the end to learn more about how the Google My Business (GMB) service works and how to use it. Plus how Google sources and uses info in business profiles and local search results.
How Google My Business (GMB) Works
To enumerate, just like we aforementioned, Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. If you verify and edit your business information, you can help customers find your business and tell them your story.
We recently installed the new business edition of the Google Custom Search Engine for our website users. It took about 5 minutes to set up and will likely pay for itself many times over. You can use it by using the search box on the right rail. Google’s custom search engine is easy to customize, fast to implement, works across multiple domains, and is cheap.
It only costs $100 a year for up to 5K pages and $500 a year for 50K pages. It also allows the owner to see search frequency and your most popular queries. After all, there is just too much information to fill out, photos to add, and services to include that make you want to pull your hair out before you even get started. That said, below is a simple GMB tutorial video guide:
In reality, GMB gives business owners more control over how their business appears to customers searching online. Google My Business lets business owners speak directly to potential customers before ever having an actual conversation with them. And now, let’s learn more about how to get started with a custom GMB profile in the right and effective way.
Google My Business (GMB) — Connect With Potential Customers
To provide users with the most complete and up-to-date information about places, Google displays profiles (including business profiles) on Google Search and Google Maps. As well as third-party websites and applications through APIs such as those on the Google Maps Platform. Google may also use profile information to generate insights and leads for enterprise customers.
For example, if customers search for a restaurant you manage, they can find the information you’ve added, such as when you’re open and where you’re located. They also might get the information you haven’t added to your business profile as well. Such as a website link to your menu or photos customers have uploaded of meals they’ve enjoyed.
A Video Guide: How Google Crawler Bots Source And Use Information In Business Listings
Overall, the combination of information provided by you and other sources lets customers make informed decisions about your location. Also, as a result, users may also find personalized recommendations and matches based on their preferences. In reality, the information in profiles is compiled from a variety of sources.
Some of these sources include:
- Publicly-available information, such as crawled web content (e.g., information from a business’ official website)
- Licensed data from third parties
- Users who contribute factual information (such as addresses and phone numbers), and content (such as photos and reviews), including business owners who claim profiles through Google Business Profile
- Credible information based on Google’s interactions with a local place or business
In short, whether it’s a DIY journey, or you’re working with a local SEO company, the first step in local SEO is to claim and verify your GMB listing. Whilst, keeping in mind, that having an optimized GMB can help you improve the chances of your local business showing up in Google’s Local Map Pack, Google Maps, and the organic rankings as well.
Every day, millions of people search on Google for businesses like yours. In that case, make your Business Profile stand out and turn those searches into your customers with the Google My Business app (download on Google Play).
The Google My Business App allows you to:
- Respond to reviews, messaging with your customers, and see your followers in the Customers tab.
- Make edits to your Business Profile and see those changes on Google in real-time.
- Upload photos, create enticing offers, and share what makes the business unique.
- See in one glance how and how much your customers interact with your Business Profile right from the app’s Home tab.
- Get real-time notifications to know when a customer connects with your business on Google.
- Focus on what you love and rest easy knowing that Google My Business is on the clock helping you get more customers.
- Manage multiple locations from one dashboard, and invite others to manage your listing.
Permission Notice:
- Location: Needed to use your current location as your business location
- Contacts: Needed to auto-complete email addresses when inviting others to manage your listing and to make Bookings for Customers stored in your device contacts
- Storage: Needed to access photos taken at your business location
What’s New!
Easier than ever to attract new customers:
- Post button – a one-stop-shop to easily add posts and photos to your Business Profile
- Profile tab – review your Business Profile info, photos, and posts, all in one place
New ways to interact with customers:
- Customers tab – the home for connecting with your customers on Google
- Messaging – respond to messages from your Business Profile within the app
- Followers – see and post to your followers on Google
So, which is an example of Google My Business (GMB) per see? Well, in the first place, our Custom Search Results Page is a great Google example of a credible search results engine that we have customized to best suit all our web users’ needs. Whereby, it allows you to simply and easily locate your specific topics online.
Not to mention, you can input the list of the Keywords or Meta Tags associated with your query. And in addition, you’ll find more answers through the jmexclusives FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) Page.
However, there are many factors that influence whether the social links will appear in your Google Business listing. Including;
- Consistency. Use the same name to represent your business in both your listing and your social profiles.
- Authenticity. If available, verify your profile using the social media site’s verification process. This helps Google determine that the social profile is managed by an owner or authorized representative of the business. Note that not all sites have verification processes available to all of their users.
- Structured data. Use social profile markup on your official website to specify which social profiles link you’d like to appear in your listing.
How do I Optimize my Google My Business?
A Google My Business profile is extremely essential for local SEO as it enables you to appear in local search results for queries related to your services or products based on your location.
Once listed, the information from your Google My Business account will appear on
- your Google Plus
- Google Maps
- the Google Search
Use markup on your official website to add your social profile information to a Google Knowledge panel.
Whereby, Knowledge panels prominently display your social profile information in some Google Search results. In addition to the general structured data guidelines, Social Profile markup should follow specific guidelines.
Such as, the social profiles in your markup must correspond to what users see on the same page.
Social Profiles that Google My Business supports
For instance, use structured data markup embedded in your public website to specify your preferred social profiles. You can specify these types of social profiles:
- YouTube
- Myspace
- SoundCloud
- Tumblr
You can specify other social profiles as well, but they aren’t currently included in Google Search results.
What are the Benefits of Google listing?
When a user searches for your business’s name, it appears above the fold on mobile devices and on the top right-hand side of the desktop search results.
By all means, the users can get all your important business information such as phone number, address and opening hours.
Of course, the users can easily find you on Maps and track the routes to your physical location. Not forgetting, you can get automatically connected to your G+ (Note: – Google Plus will be no longer available after 2nd April 2019).
In which you can build a profile, post updates and share the latest news regarding your business. However, if you want to reap all these benefits, you must improve the prominence of your business in Google My Business listing.
Having said that, follow the following simple rules by jmexclusives.
1. Fill out the necessary information
Before implementing any advanced strategies, you need to ensure that your business’s name, address and phone number (NAP) are consistent and up-to-date across the web.
This gives the most potential for your Google My Business listings to represent your business.
You must also focus on the following factors;
- Put a high-quality logo
- Update opening hours
- Choose the right category
- Upload quality photos
- Update your website’s URL
2. Build Local Google Business Citations
For any business, having a consistent NAP is extremely crucial to rank well in local search results. Google considers third-party data account to determine which business to show up for geo-type searches.
If the information about your business is not the same across the web, it will have an impact on your local search ranking. So, you should regularly check, clean up and build local citations on quality business directories.
3. Go on the Google’s 360 Tour
Why not give your potential customers an inside look at your business with Google 360 Virtual tour?
With Google Maps ‘street view’ option, you can let the users see your business location through 360-degree photographs. You can also add a ‘business view’ simply by letting a Google-approved photographer take some photos.
All these aspects increase your brand’s online presence and familiarity.
4. Try to get positive reviews
You can ask customers for reviews and feedbacks, which help search engines to authenticate the users’ experience with your business. If you have more positive reviews, it creates an impression that more people are feeling comfortable to do business with you.
Besides, building positive reviews, you should also focus on mitigating negative feedbacks. You should never ignore negative reviews and should respond quickly and appropriately. While positive reviews give your local business a competitive edge, the negative reviews destroy your credentials.
Effective ways to get more reviews:
- Ask your customers for more reviews
- Encourage customers to rate your business
- Use an email marketing list
- Offer incentives to every review
- Share reviews on social networking sites
- Give incentives to employees who gather reviews
5. Strengthen your website connection with Google My Business
As an example, there are several strategies that you can implement on your website to boost the local connection signals between your website and Google My Business profile.
- Display your business name, address and phone number on the website.
- Incorporate organizational schema Markup onto your homepage so that you can showcase additional details such as social profiles, logo and much more.
- Try to get more links from high-authority websites
- Try to create different landing pages, especially if you are operating your business in different places.
- Focus on general SEO as well. If you drive a lot of organic traffic and rank well on search results, it will aid you in local searches.
How do I Optimize my Business Listing?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a marketing discipline focused on growing organic visibility (non-paid) search engine results.
Additionally, it is the process of improving the position that your website appears in the “organic” search results. For example, returned by sites such as Google, Yandex, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
And as a matter of fact, Search Engine Optimization isn’t just about building yourself a search engine-friendly websites. But, it’s about making your site better for people too.
Furthermore, jmexclusives believes that these principles go hand-in-hand. Equally important, sites that appear higher up in the results will get more traffic to their pages.
Coupled with potentially more landing page visits, lead conversion and product sales in your business. You can see – why SEO is Important to your Online Business or even learn more about How to Optimize your Business Listing on Google My Business.
Takeaway,
Eventually, as it may sound not so important, but trust me it is the most important step towards your business growth.
As can be seen, getting your business on Google My Business (GMB) will help you out in increasing your chances of showing up on Google’s local search results. As well as, Google Maps, and organic search results in general.
Already set-up businesses can claim this free business listing on Google My Business and include information about their company such as;
- their business address,
- business phone number,
- business hours,
- and types of payment methods accepted by them to make the purchase.
Don’t have time to work on these strategies? Don’t worry, give us a call today! Let the experts at jmexclusives do it for you! Wishing you all the Best!
Resourceful References;
With this in mind, I hope you have gathered enough information in regard to the above-revised guide on Google My Business.
Finally, visit the jmexclusives website to get more details on digital online services & solutions support. But, if you’ll have additional information, contributions or even suggestions, please Contact Us. You can also share some or more of your thoughts in the comments box below this post.
Below, see more related, additional and useful topic links;
- What is Search Engine Marketing?
- How Do You Generate Lead Conversions?
- What is Search Engine Optimization?
- Social Media Marketing (SMM) For Beginners
- Email Marketing Masters Guide In Publishing
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