7 Ways to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
If you’re not yet familiar with Google My Business, it’s a free tool that will help your business rank better in local search results on Google and other websites. Whether you own or operate a physical or online business, your Google My Business listing can help potential customers find you when they’re ready to buy your product or service. Here are seven steps to get the most out of your listing.
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| 7 Ways to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing |
Add your city + state.
The first step in optimizing your Google My Business listing is adding your city and state.
Adding your location is important for local search results. For example, if you own a cafe in San Francisco, California and don’t include San Francisco, CA as part of your business name or address, you might show up for searches like coffee shop San Francisco but you won’t show up on searches that are specific to your city.
That could be missed opportunity! Adding local info not only makes it easier for customers who know exactly what they want—they can find you right away—but it also helps with ranking on general keyword searches related to your industry.
Add details about your store, service, etc.
It's important that you take your time and be as thorough as possible with all of your details.
- If a customer has questions, they'll likely start here first. The more information you provide, the better prepared they'll be once they walk through your doors or pick up their phone to call you.
- It also gives them a heads-up on any discounts or offers that you may have available right now.
- Keep it simple, but make sure your customers know everything they need to know about who you are and what you offer at a glance.
- Make sure to fill out your business hours, address, phone number, website URL (if applicable), email address, and other relevant contact information.
- You can even upload photos for each page if you'd like—the possibilities are endless! If you'd like some inspiration for what other businesses in your industry have done with their pages, go ahead and check out theirs too! We're constantly adding new features to help businesses connect with potential customers in more ways than ever before.
- One of our newest additions is business pages on Google+, which allow businesses to communicate directly with customers via Hangouts on Air or live Q&A sessions—these can be an excellent way to engage with current and potential clients while promoting products or services.
Verify your listing with Google.
You’ll want to verify your listing is accurate and up-to-date on Google. You can check your listing by visiting your business page and clicking edit info.
- If you have an inaccurate or outdated listing, click verify next to your name in search results.
- Make sure you have all of your relevant phone numbers listed (local, toll free, etc.) as well as website information (or links to your social media accounts) listed under additional contact info.
- As long as these sections are filled out, it will help potential customers know where they can find more information about you if needed.
Make sure you have all the required images and details.
When you sign up for Google My Business, you need to add a specific number of photos, along with your business hours and contact information.
- Be sure that you include all of these in your listing. This makes it easy for potential customers to locate and call you if they have any questions or are ready to buy.
- Having accurate information is also important because Google lists your business in their local search directory.
- If there’s inaccurate info in there, potential customers may think there’s something wrong with your company and never give it a chance.
Use your NAP.
As a business owner, you’re likely very familiar with your organization’s Name, Address and Phone Number (NAP).
NAP is what connects your name to your business—the principle contact details for every single location.
Using a consistent, accurate NAP across all of your marketing materials helps you stand out from competitors. Connecting with customers via social media? Make sure it’s reflected on your GMB listing.
Post about an upcoming sale or special event? Update that information as well.
Consistency across multiple mediums signals professionalism and boosts trust among potential leads.
And most importantly: make sure that information is updated regularly so customers know they can turn to you when they need more information or if they have any questions at all.
Claim your address on Facebook.
Before you can optimize your GMB listing, you have to claim your address on Facebook.
- This means going into Facebook’s ad manager and verifying that you own a specific physical location by providing some proof of residency (just like when setting up a campaign).
- Doing so enables a bunch of features within Facebook’s platform, including: messaging potential customers, putting up photos and more info about your business on an associated page, creating new ads and marketing campaigns around events or offers.
- You can also change the physical address for any existing businesses associated with your personal account.
- The process takes just a few minutes and is relatively painless—though if it feels cumbersome for whatever reason, some third-party tools will handle everything for you.
Respond to reviews and questions.
If you don’t respond to reviews, you can lose customers quickly. It could be because a customer didn’t receive their order on time or because a product wasn’t exactly what they expected.
Bad reviews are never fun but good reviews are even worse! No matter how great your products and services are, one happy customer won’t tell 10 friends about you; but one unhappy customer will definitely tell 20 people about their bad experience.
Make sure you respond quickly and politely when someone leaves a review on your business listing. Remember: The best thing you can do is keep your customers happy.
So, listen carefully to what they have to say, make sure it doesn't happen again and move on!.
Is Google My Business really free?.
Yes, that’s right—you can claim and manage your listing on Google My Business completely free of charge.
This is a huge perk for small businesses, which often don’t have big advertising budgets at their disposal.
In fact, when it comes to online reputation management (ORM), optimizing your Google My Business listing is an absolute must-do for every local business owner.
There are a lot of ORM strategies in place but optimizing your GMB profile is usually at or near the top of any local business owner’s list.
Here are tips to get you started.
- Create & Manage Your Listing: It sounds obvious, but there’s a reason why I listed it first: It should be one of your first steps toward getting more out of Google My Business.
- Creating a complete listing is simple enough; all you need to do is fill out some basic information about your business, including name, address, phone number(s), website URL(s) and categories relevant to your industry.
- It may take some time to gather all that info together if you haven't already done so—but it's important work because filling out those fields will make sure everything looks just right when people search for your company online later on down the road.
How do I create a Google business account?.
When you click on Business Tools, then click on Manage your business information and then choose Get started now, a separate window will pop up.
Here you can enter all of your business information. Once you finish setting up all of your basic info, click Save changes and you will be directed to a screen that has several options for optimizing your business profile.
Choose whether or not you want.
1) text ads above search results.
- 2) images with search results.
- If you are just starting out and aren't ready to pay for these features, just check off Not right now.
- Click Save Changes when finished. You have successfully created your free Google business account! Now it's time to optimize it! How do I add my address? : Go back to your business page (the one where you entered all of your basic info).
- Then, under Claim an existing local business, click Add/edit location.
- A new box will appear with a map showing various locations near you. Find yours and select it by clicking on it once.
- Fill in any additional details about your address such as hours of operation, phone number, etc., then hit save at the bottom of the page.
- Congratulations! You've added your first location to your Google My Business account!.
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