How to create the perfect Google Business Profile
Nowadays, small businesses need to take care of many unrelated things, like HR and SEO, two abbreviations irrelevant to the other. Local businesses, in particular, need to ensure that Google finds them and displays their products and services as much as possible. With the search engine owning up to 87% of the shares in the search market, businesses need a form of benefit from that kind of online traffic.
Picture this: on average, potential customers have about 63,000 choices per second on their daily queries, and approximately 5,6 billion people use Google to answer their questions. With all those results popping up at the same time, how does an organization stand out?
It is common to Google for simple everyday things, like where to have lunch or where is the closest seamstress to my job area. But have you ever wondered how those businesses appear on the results page? Well, it’s probably because they have a Google Business Profile.
Google Business Profile is a tool that could rapidly help your business compete with large companies. It allows enterprises to be found through a simple search and showcasing helpful information about their physical store or online service area. Since it is a personalized tool, owners can customize data like:
Pictures of the venue
Schedule updates
Share contact information
Add business hours
Include your business's website
Nonetheless, with new media consumption channels emerging constantly, how does one create the perfect showcase for a business? Let us break it down for you.
1. Claim your business profile
Before creating a Google Business Profile, it is essential to know what it looks like. This tool is a crash course in online marketing where potential clients get accurate information about an enterprise of interest, depending on their inquiry. With the consumer’s journey becoming increasingly complex, it is crucial to track them down directly to the business’ website; how? Prioritizing geolocation and meticulous data.
According to Google’s Consumer Insights, the number of searches that included the ‘near me’ designation doubled during 2020. This means that each inquiry becomes more personalized with time, and enterprises are utilizing this trend to their benefit. How do potential clients know where to go when visiting a local business for the first time? They most likely found the location on Google because at least 64% of customers use Google Business Profiles to see contact information.
But, the business must be specific for future clients to access that contact information.
Let’s imagine that a customer is looking for acrylic nail services. The results on their search look a little like this: ‘Nail Salon’, ‘Nails and Haircuts’ and ‘Becky’s Nail Salon’. However, the client has trouble finding the difference between their services during their research.
Follow these steps to claim your Google Business profile correctly:
Make sure your business name is identical to the one you use on your store signage.
Make sure that both your business name and address exactly match your other listings across the web.
Indicate both your regular and holiday hours.
2. Highlight applicable attributes!
A detailed description is crucial, especially when many businesses fall into multiple categories. Google Business Profile has a system that allows potential clients to be drawn to ‘discovery searches’, which are the first results. Usually, those enterprises count with at least three of these characteristics:
A detailed description of the business’ utility, mission statement and useful keywords (use all 750 available)
Defined primary categories (based on your type of business)
A list of technicalities that separate your business from other enterprises like your service, secondary categories, and delivery service, among others
Special features customers can seek out like Free wi-fi, a gift shop inside or valet parking.
Ready to create a Google Business Profile? Here's a complete guide.
3. Interaction is key
Increasing engagement with potential customers is a call for action, and a way to boost interaction is:
Uploading pictures. A study led by Bright Local demonstrated that enterprises that post photos regularly are more likely to get calls, direction requests and clicks on their website.
Choosing images representing your business's brand is fundamental for customers to identify your enterprise. Google Business Profile does have a set of guidelines for each entrepreneur to follow when posting photos, and they can help each organization target different types of clients.
For starters, it is crucial to upload pictures that have explicit depictions of how your business looks or the service it offers. For example, if you own a wedding dress boutique, the images that pop up when people look up your listing are wedding dresses, clients trying on wedding dresses, or general shots of your location. Nonetheless, a crucial tip for all enterprises is to ensure your picture matches the searched keywords.
Before we move on, here are a couple of prompts that could be useful for future picture posts:
Geotag your photos to further indicate to Google your prominence in your area
Videos are useful too!
Make sure to add: Logo, cover photo and business photo.
4. Set up messaging
Let’s imagine you were looking for a pizza place to have dinner tonight. Which among all the options are potential clients most likely to choose? The one that has better reviews and is best ranked!
Positive reviews are a must, and those can only be achieved by improving your search engine ranking, generating leads and engaging with your online community. Google Profile allows you to respond instantly to your clients and provides helpful information to others, such as locations being moved, or an unexpected schedule change and creates strategies that stem from the customers' perception of your business. How to get the best reviews? Here are a few tips:
Respond to messages in a short-time notice, especially when it comes to questions
About 72% review their place of stay immediately after leaving it. Therefore it is essential to have positive feedback and encourage guests to share their experiences with the world!
Respond to all comments, including the bad ones. We get it. Dealing with negativity is never easy, but being transparent about your business is the best way to go!
Don't miss 3 benefits of creating a Google Business Profile for Restaurants.
The bottom line: Does having a Google Business Profile help with SEO?
Definitely! Your Google My Business profile has the potential to show up before domains with massive traffic.
A Google Business Profile also improves local SEO. If people search for keywords like ”near me” or “along my route” your business is 1000% more likely to show up.
If this sounds like a lot, don’t worry. We can help you get to Google’s first page! We deliver tangible results within 6 months. Cheaper than ads or marketing.
All businesses (especially local businesses) need help with some form of marketing. The good news is that you don't need to become an expert in every single aspect of digital marketing to scale your marketing business. Instead, you can partner with the right white label marketing firm, like Merchynt.
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Request a free local marketing consultation call to help your hotel rank on Google’s first page.