Google My Business has evolved over the years into a tool that can optimize your marketing efforts and enhance your visibility within top search engine results. Using Google My Business (GMB), you can reach a wider audience with less time and effort. Optimizing your GMB profile has many advantages, such as boosting organic traffic, building trust with social proof, and increasing search ranking and engagement – all while gathering valuable insights.
With organic search, a potential customer’s first impression may be your GMB profile instead of your website. Formerly, websites were the singular location where customers were searching for more information about your business, such as locations, phone number, testimonials, etc. For many, customers may choose your business over a competitor based on the information in your GMB profile, without ever visiting your website. Therefore, it’s vital that you optimize your listing to give a positive reaction to users and increase the chances of converting those people into customers.
Optimizations
Enhance the Basics
Before curating more content, ensure all your listing’s essentials are fully completed.
- Fill out contact details: use your real phone number, address, keywords, and hours.
- Write a compelling description; be authentic and showcase your business.
- Add quality photos and videos: visually compel users to interact with your profile and pique their interest further.
- Connect social media profiles; help your customers find your social profiles easier.
- Extras: choosing the general location of your business and the areas you serve can help guide users to select your location over others close in proximity.
Respond to Reviews
It is important as a business owner to communicate with your customers, no matter what their review may be. Responding to reviews through GMB can increase trust and loyalty from your customers and promote transparency, which is often valued for potential customers. You should also take the time to respond to poor reviews as an opportunity to remedy the issue and offer a solution to that person, which the public will see and respect. It is shown that businesses that interact and engage with unhappy customers are more likely to see repeat business in the future.
Provide Answers to Questions
Anyone with a Google account can ask questions about your business, and you’ll want to be sure you’re responding to every question. Like the reviews, you can show your transparency and responsiveness as a business. With the Q&A section being a form of a “community board,” this is an opportunity to control the conversation about your company. By asking your own most-common questions, it will provide the most informative answers for your users. This is also a way to gather your most asked questions and put them on a FAQ page on your website, potentially reducing easy questions that go to your customer service team and building your reputation online.
Add Engaging Posts
The posts feature displays thumbnail images and a brief description which when clicked on, is a full-sized image and more text when clicked. These can be utilized as free display ads for your business – be sure to post promotional offers for your customers. If you aren’t featuring a promotion, think about ways to showcase your business with service, trust, personality, and culture.
Conclusion
Regardless of your business or the services you provide, your GMB profile should be a part of your ongoing online marketing strategy to create more business and stand apart from your competitors. Utilizing your GMB as a marketing tactic in your overall strategy is a cost-free way to enhance your other marketing efforts. A well-optimized listing is one of the most essential elements in local search. Make sure yours stands out!