Google My Business | GOLD for Local Businesses & Search

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a valuable tool for businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including Google Search and Google Maps.

What’s more, having a correctly updated and optimised Google My Business listing is GOLD for local search. The benefits are immense for local business.

Google My Business is a separate listing within Google’s search engine specifically, for local businesses. Local stores and service providers relevant to the user’s search are shown on a map and each listing includes the business’s hours, phone number, address, website, and other essential information that people may look for on a business’s website.

It’s basically a comprehensive and interactive phone book listing that people will find when they’re searching for goods and services locally. 82% of people find information about local businesses on search engines, which demonstrates that one of the best ways to promote your brand is customising your business information with a Google My Business listing.

If you operate a bricks and mortar location or local service, then nothing is more important than driving local customers to your store or location, even if you also offer online sales and services.

Not only will your online entry show your location on the map, (or service area) but it will also show up above the main search results. Location is everything! People want to find what they’re looking for as soon as possible and are likely to click on a local listing before they dive deeper into the search results below. After all, when people search for a product or service near them, they’re usually very close to making a purchase or engage a service, so it’s important the information about your business that shows up when people search Google is as accurate, complete, and optimised as possible.

If you own a business, anyone can find your GMB profile by making related search queries on Google containing location data or a location-based keyword. After all, that’s what Google was built to do. Search engines find and show relevant pages via keywords and other important attributes based on what the user is looking for.

When someone searches for a type of business in their area — say “website designers Lilydale” they’ll see the websites with the highest SEO scores for that keyword phrase. They’ll also see a list of local rankings at the top of the page. These results are Google My Business pages of relevant local businesses. Users will be shown a map of the area with the top listings highlighted.

A Google My Business listing can be a hugely powerful SEO tool.

How GMB can help your business stand out and succeed

Firstly, your Google My Business listing needs to be accurate, but it also needs to look good. Making your listing look visually appealing is a key. Photos are essential for adding visual interest and for helping customers understand what you do, or the experience they can expect in-store, or in your business. According to Google, businesses with photos see 35% more clicks to their website and 42% higher requests for driving directions in Google Maps.

Google My Business also has advanced functionality. You can also use Google My Business (GMB) to share new photos, information posts, and more making it a great way to update local customers on what’s going on within your business and give them the information they need to help choose you over your competitors.

Reviews and specifically positive 5-star reviews are critical! Reviews help customers in your service area decide where to direct their dollars. Google My Business, reviews also serve another very important purpose – boosting your SEO rankings. Google reviews are the only ones that count for search engine optimisation! If your listing is attractive and has good reviews, you should see an increase in the number of clicks to your website coming from people who are either ready to buy or are looking for the right local products, services or store.

One goal with reviews is to have a steady stream of positive reviews. The best way to achieve this is to provide your customers with great service and experience and encourage them to leave a review where it matters.
(Find out about easy ways to get more Google reviews).

Google My Business Feature Posts

Another great feature is Google My Business Feature Posts. They are a great way to regularly promote news, specials, events, blog posts and more and they show that you’re actively keeping up a strong online presence. Feature Posts can include a snippet of up to 300 words, plus photos or a video and a call to action or link to your website. However, they unlike posts on social media platforms, Google Feature Posts expire after a week (except for events), which means you’ll need to put some ongoing effort into creating content. However, it makes them a great promotional platform for delivering timely up to date information to customers that you wanted noticed.

Other Google My Business Features

Some of the other available GMB features include:

Video – If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then a high-quality video is worth way more than a thousand! Videos can add some variety to your profile and make you stand out among other businesses. You can add videos to your listing, as long as they’re less than 30 seconds long, high-resolution, and under 100 MB.

Events – If your business hosts special events, concerts, promotions etc then it’s a great way to promote these events on your GMB listing. Free advertising for your events—what’s not to like about that?

There are also other great features such as adding all your products and services to the listing, menus, appointment scheduling and more.

The bottom line is Google My Business for small businesses is GOLD! If you truly want to be really successful on Google My Business, then having a fully optimised & regularly updated listing is essential along with a good volume of local citations.
(Find out more about citations and why citations are good for rankings and good for business.)

If you need help in increasing your online presence and want to find out more, we offer quality SEO Services  to help you gain more leads, customers and sales from your website!