What is Google My Business?

Google My Business (GMB) is an online tool created by Google designed to help business owners manage how their business appears in search engine results as well as Google Maps listings.

With Google My Business, you can claim your free local business listing and add important details like contact information, photos of your products and services, appointment booking links, your website, hours of operation, and more. All this is done through a very easy to use, web based dashboard or mobile app.

Why Do I Need Google My Business?

Like it or not, customers are researching businesses online now more than ever before. Whether you claim your GMB listing or not, your business will eventually be listed in Google’s search results.

Did you know…

• 49% of businesses get more than 1,000 views from Google Searches each month
• 90% of potential customers only look at first page search results.
• Calls from GMB listings increased 61% in the first half of 2020
• 64% of customers use GMB to find company contact details.
• 56% of actions on a GMB listing are visits to the company website.

Those are some amazing stats. But there are more benefits from having a GMB listing:

• It’s free advertising!
• You’ll see increased traffic and sales.
• It’s an easy – and important – way to get reviews.
• GMB listings with reviews increase your company’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
• Properly optimized GMB listings can show up in the “3 Pack” – the map display above the first search result on page one.

So as you can see, having a clean, optimized and well managed GMB listing allows you to provide your potential customers with the most important information about your company, along with the best ways to contact you.

Set up properly, your GMB can be turned into a full fledged, 24x7x365 contact center that allows users to leave a good review, chat with you in real time, click to call, or book an appointment – all for free.

How Do I Setup Google My Business and Get My Business Listed on Google?

If you haven’t claimed or set up your business on Google yet, there are multiple ways to do this on desktop, mobile device, Google My Business, or Google Maps.

Google’s got a very thorough resource on how to add or claim your business right here: https://support.google.com/business/answer/2911778

We’ll cover the basics here so you don’t have to dig through Google’s support documentation.

Step 1: Load the Google My Business Website

To access your Google My Business Dashboard, just browse to https://www.google.com/business/ and sign in or click Manage Now.

Step 2: Set Your Business Name and Location

If you’ve never created your listing, you’ll be asked for your business name. There may also be a chance that someone has listed your business, so you’d see the business name available for selection.

If your business is a brick and mortar location and accepts customers there, you’d add your address. If you’re providing services, choose the option for delivering goods and services to customers.

If you choose a service based business, you’ll have the opportunity to enter all the areas you service. This is where you want to be very thorough in listing all the cities you have in your service area.

Step 3: Finish Your Listing

From here, you’ll simply need to follow the remaining prompts by adding your phone number, website, and other basic info.

At the end of the process, you’ll need to verify your listing. The most common method is by postcard. Google will send a postcard with a unique code on it to your business address. When you get it, you’ll be able to login again and verify the GMB.

It’s important to not edit your GMB while you’re waiting for your postcard because that could delay the process. After you verify your business, we can get busy optimizing your listing!

Posting Tips!

Post at least twice a week

Think of GMB Posts like your posts on Facebook, or a short blog post on your website.

Google My Business posts allow you to share even more information with your audience right from the search results page or from your listing. It’s a best practice to post on Google My Business at least twice a week.

You can use GMB posts in many ways—to announce upcoming events, highlight new products and services, clarify changes in hours, share interesting news, or communicate your special offers.

There are several types of Google posts: COVID 19 Update, What’s New, Events, Products, Offers and Welcome Offers.

Tips for your Google My Business posts:

• Post relevant content
• Include keywords on your post
• Use high-quality pictures or videos
• Upload couple of photos every week

How to Manage and Respond to Reviews!

Manage and Respond to Reviews

Responding to Google reviews is vital for your business’s success in local search results

Reviews can make or break a business, and it’s vitally important that you 1) get good reviews 2) answer all your reviews, and 3) handle bad reviews gracefully!

You want customers to leave good reviews. Google rewards businesses that have more reviews, and loves to show businesses with good reviews.

When you get reviews, you need to answer them in a timely fashion. If you get a good review, be sure to thank the customer.

If you get a bad review – and you will eventually get them – it’s critical to handle the negative feedback carefully!

With negative reviews, always be kind and never, ever get into a fight with, blame, or insult the customer. If you can, try and make it right and calmly explain yourself in your response. Potential customers see how you handle negative feedback and that can have almost as much power as good feedback.

If you get fake reviews, GMB does have a process for removing those. So if you get spam reviews, you can fill out Google’s form for removing them.

Make sure to mention keywords in responding to reviews.