Did you know that Google has a way for you to list your business in their directory? Did you know that that directory is FREE? Yep! Read more about the Google My Business Basics below.
Table of Contents
Google My Business Video
Would you rather watch a video about this content than reading? No worries, we got you covered!
Google My Business Basics – SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a super important thing to have a basic understanding of because it gets you FREE traffic. Understanding the basics of SEO is why having a Pinterest Strategy is so important. Pinterest is a search engine, so it uses the same concepts as google to prioritize its search results.
When someone goes onto Google or Bing or any other Search engine types in a question and gets a list of replies, you want one of those replies to yours. Now SEO altogether is super complicated. It relies on quality content, ranking, backlinks, domain authority, and I could go on and on. But what you really need to know is the basic things to help you get all those complicated terms without understanding why it works.
The first and easiest to set up for your business is Google My Business. Setting up an account is free, easy to do, and helps your business SEO. It’s a win-win, and you have nothing to lose by setting up the account.
Maximize Google Search
If you have a Google My Business account, you can get found a business on Google search results. Make sure you add enough information to your profile so that other people know what you offer, where to find you, and what problems you will solve for them.
At a minimum you need to fill out these things:
- Add your Logo
- Create a cover photo
- Business Hours
- Business Location
- Add in Products and/or Services
- Use Reviews – Respond to negative ones as appropriate.
- Share Photos
- If you blog, link to your articles and ensure your website is listed
Interact with Customers
One of the Google My Business basic features you want to use is the reviews. If you offer products or services, make sure you ask for them to give you a review on your business listing. Good Reviews help the search engines prioritize your listing over others with similar products or services.
Likely you are using reviews over on your Facebook page, maybe a Shopify store, or other places too. That’s fine. You can and should have reviews in more than one place. After all, if Facebook were to disappear, you wouldn’t want all your positive reviews to vanish. Use your follow-up system or email sequencing to ask customers for reviews and switch around where you ask them to leave those reviews.
One of the other Google My Business features is the messaging services. This service allows customers to message your business right from the google listing. Making things easy for customers helps get them as customers. Typically if it’s hard to get a hold of you, they will leave. That customer leaving is a sale out the window.
Review Analytics
As with most platforms, there is built-in analytics. Make sure you use them. Understanding what works and doesn’t help you to build and refine your future strategies. Doing the same things over and over if they aren’t working won’t suddenly get you results.
Set up the Google My Business Account
Setting up your Google My Business account is easy and will allow you to use most of the features right away. Go to google.com/business. Next, you will want to sign in with a Google Account and then follow the prompts.
Conclusion
We talked about what Google my Business is and why you need it. I hope you found this article helpful. If you aren’t quite ready to jump in and get started with GMB, that is okay. Figure out what you need to work on and then tackle it one task at a time.
Figuring out what tasks are actually priorities will help you manage your time most effectively. This is harder than it sounds. That is why I’ve created a workbook to help you figure this all out. Let’s get your actual business and life priorities straightened out.
If you need any extra help, message me on my Facebook page, and I’ll help guide you through the process. Add a comment down below on what feature you are most excited to use!
