Google is trying over time to provide immediate answers on the SERP (Google's results page) through organic traffic. Basically, it tries to provide answers before even entering the sites present in the results. So if you are looking for, for example, an “SEO consultant in Rome”, I will immediately tell you about my business, which ones are the best or the closest with a review.
This should be incentive enough to start working on your Google My Business listing and start updating and improving it over your local competitors.
What is Google my Business?
Google my Business (accessible from here https://business.google.com ) is a free platform or tool that allows you to manage how your business is displayed in search results. Allows you to manage your business name and hours of service, locations, respond to and monitor customer reviews, add photos and videos.
Here is the visual example of our agency after searching “SEO Agency”. As you can see currently in Rome also typing the search from other Italian cities we are positioned in the first position. This is because we have optimized the card very carefully, however, the results depend on several factors and your location. For example, if you are 20 meters away from another SEO agency, Google may not show you that one.
At the same time, it is very useful for analyzing information about how people find and interact with your listing on Google and, therefore, with your business as well.
According to some statistics, around 89% of people search for a local business on their smartphones at least once a week.
Have you ever heard of local SEO?
If you've just heard about local SEO, this is definitely the first and best step you can take to optimize how your business looks in Google search results.
What does this mean if you are an entrepreneur looking to make your business known to as many customers as possible?
Well, it's very simple, you will increase the chances of getting clients in your location if your company has accurate, complete and optimized information within Google search results.
Steps needed to improve and optimize your Google My Business listing
- Request and Verify Your Google My Business Listing
- Fill in all the company information
- Add photos and videos
- Add posts and offers
- Carefully manage all your reviews
- Answer the questions they ask you directly in Mybusiness
- Optimize and make changes when there are
Request and Verify Your Google My Business Listing
If you haven't created a Google My Business account yet, this is the first step to request or create a listing.
How to Request a Google My Business Listing
Before we get into the details of creating a new business, make sure your business is not included in Google local results. This is because many Local Guides (including me) when some activity is not present or data such as site, photos, phone, etc, etc. They will update the card anyway, even if no one has claimed ownership of it.
Here's what you need to do to claim your business on Google My Business:
- Search your company name on Google
- If your business exists and has not been claimed, click “Request ownership” and follow the instructions to claim ownership
- If you can't claim it, it means someone already has. Make sure if it's someone in your company that they grant you admin access, and if not, these are the steps Google recommends you take to claim ownership of the company.
- If everything went well and you were able to claim your business, the last step would be to verify the location.
If your card is not present, follow these steps below (obviously skip them if it is already present)
How to set up Google Mybusiness for a new business or a business that is not present?
These steps will teach you how to set up your business from scratch on Google My Business.
- Go to Google My Business and use your Gmail address to sign in to the service.
- Fill out all the necessary basic information such as company name, country, zip code and address (make sure the address is accurate, you will need it later in the verification process).
- Indicate whether you physically deliver goods and services to customers in the store or make deliveries
- If you work from home and do not want your address to be publicly available, select "Hide my address", however it would be better if the location indicates this.
- Choose the category of your business (for example, pizzeria, hairdresser, mechanic, etc.). Make sure the selection you are making matches your business precisely, as this will tell Google which searches to search for your business.
- Choose a verification option from those available.
How to verify your business on Google My Business
Verifying your business listing is necessary to manage the information displayed on Google Search, Maps, and other platforms.
This will allow Google's algorithm to ensure that the information is correct and that only you, as the owner or administrator, can access it.
The most effective way in my humble opinion, although the slowest, is to use the postcard.
Google will send you a postcard with a code and a link that you must connect to to verify
Well, now let's see how to optimize the Google MyBusiness card
Fill in all the company information
Don't skip any information and try to provide as many details about your business as possible. Google will offer you many options, try to exploit them all and make your profile as complete as possible.
Categories
Listing your business in a specific category will not only help users find you, but it will also change the options available in your Google My Business account. For example, if you are a restaurant, you will also have the option to add a link to your menu. For hotels, for example, there are many options.
How many categories should you choose for Google My Business?
A mistake that many make is choosing too many categories of activities, even if they are not relevant. This does not help Google but confuses it. While only one main category will appear when people view your listing in search results, adding multiple categories will help both you and Google.
Google will better understand your area of expertise and your listing may be shown to more people searching for related services.
Business hours and closing days
Make sure you correctly assess the hours your business will be open. Don't always assign the position as open if it is a simple office or business with office hours. People can call while it is closed and can leave negative comments.
Make the holiday better every year. For example, remember to value variable holidays such as Easter. It is important that the days are valued well because Google will understand that your listing is better than that of a competitor and will favor it in the search results.
If you are a seasonal business, remove all opening hours when you are closed and re-enter them when you reopen
Telephone
Enter the number of your company or business here. Google uses this information to confirm your NAP (name, address, and phone number), so this number must match all other lists when generating appointments.
Website
Enter your site correctly and don't forget to install Analytics to keep traffic from Mybusiness under control, although Google will always show you monthly reports in the email. All URLs must be active when you enter Google My Business. For businesses with a single site, use the home page of your website. For businesses with multiple locations, use the specific page for each location.
Citation URL
If you are using an appointment website, you should add it here.
Services
This section is one of the new options added to Google My Business. This is only available for a limited number of service companies (dentists, lawyers, insurance agents, hotels, marketing agencies and others).
Fill it out with all the services you offer, their prices and detailed information and don't worry if they don't appear next to your business in the search results.
Add a description of each service of up to 1000 characters. Take advantage of this space to describe each service for clients using advanced keywords
Menu
Available only for catering companies:
- At this time, it only appears for end users in the Google Maps app.
- Use this in addition to a link to your menu on your website
- Create separate sections for each section of your menu
- Create separate menu items within each section
- Enter the appropriate name and price for each menu item
- Uses the same menu item description used in the actual menu up to 1000 characters
Products
Only available for certain types of retail-oriented businesses:
- It may not be productive to include all products or product categories. Focus only on the most important and profitable products and categories.
- Create separate collections for each product category you want to showcase
- Enter the name of the collection.
- Add a collection description of up to 1000 characters. Use this space to describe each collection/product category using advanced keywords.
- Create individual products within each category
- Enter the product name and price (price ranges are not supported)
- Add a product description of up to 1000 characters. We recommend that you use the same description that you would use in your product catalog.
Attributes
These can range from things like “wheelchair accessible entrance” or “female-led activity” to “languages spoken.”
Make sure you select the ones that relate perfectly to your business and eliminate the wrong ones. Pay attention because Google is now asking “Local Guide” users to fill in the missing information. So if a local guide makes a mistake when writing something about your business, they could find it on your profile.
Company Description and Google Mybusiness Keywords
Try to prepare a description that will satisfy future customers and is obviously a bit SEO friendly. What does SEO friendly mean? Well, it contains the terms or keywords with which your business or other similar businesses are searched in the search engine. Also prepare an attractive text that invites the future client to the famous call to action.
Specific information about your industry
Depending on your industry, you will have different options to complete and take advantage of. If you're a hotel, you can add a way for people to book a room using one of the portals you appear on (booking, expedia, hotels, etc.) or if you're a restaurant, you can add a link to your menu.
Opening date
There is no need to go into much detail about this. Simply fill in the year and month you opened your business.
The importance of adding photos and videos to your Mybusiness
According to Google, businesses with photos are seen by around 36% more users. You should include several photos and videos relevant to your business listing.
Be sure to use them, as they will help you better define your business and services and give potential clients an idea of what they will find at your location.
Google Photos My Business
Photos are vitally important in the business listing and optimization cannot be completed if there are no photos. Do not use stock photography it may be flagged and removed.
Let's look specifically at the types of photos:
Cover photo
Your cover photo is the most important image in your entire listing, as it will stand out when your business appears in search results.
Profile picture
Your business profile photo appears when you upload new photos, videos, or respond to reviews.
Your profile photo, on the other hand, is what appears when you upload new photos, videos, or check responses.
External photos
Help the customer recognize the location of your business as they approach from different directions. Add at least three great outdoor photos to help customers recognize your location. Capture photos from different angles and times of day. In our web agency, for example, we have a photographer dedicated to advertising photography and we offer a complete service to our clients who carry out Google Mybusiness optimization. Society must show itself in the best possible way.
Interior photos
Show your customers the decoration and atmosphere of your business. At least three photos of your interior to show what your company proposes.
Any product photo
Add photos of your iconic or popular products to give customers a good idea of what you have to offer. Depending on the type of business you are running, there may be other categories of photos available. The objective is to give potential customers an idea of the products, food and drinks, common areas or rooms that your business can offer.
The videos are something new in recent months.
Google has been adding the ability to add videos to your list a few months ago. These are not required and may not always appear in search results, but if you have a video showcasing your business, be sure to upload it.
A video is a great way to show people what your business is. This is one we've been using for the past few months, but it's a lot of advertising while you could be thinking about a video while you do your job.
What are Google Posts and why are they important?
Google Posts is a feature built into the GMB dashboard that allows you to post short messages that will appear whenever your business name is searched.
Initially, they were limited to plain text, multimedia, or events, but Google has expanded these types to now include offers and products as well.
So prepare a good offer with a good discount for the customers who will come or buy your products.
Making a post is pretty simple. Go to the “Publish” section and start creating it.
Google My Business Post Size
Make sure your Google My Business post follows Google's criteria for this type of content:
- Make it relevant to your business and audience
- It should be between 100 and 300 words.
- You can present sales, products you sell, events or whatever.
- May include an image
- You can include a call to action.
- You may link to other web pages.
Make sure all details are accurate and help customers get more information
The importance of reviews
Review management is an absolute necessity when it comes to taking care of your business. Now all people go to look for reviews before entering a business.
Always respond to criticism, even the most critical, while always being professional and courteous. Give the image of education, you will see that you will be rewarded. Don't stoop to the level of a rude customer.
Reviews are the most important ranking factor for local search. If your business has no reviews, this greatly reduces your chances of appearing in local search results and Google Maps listings. Lack of customer feedback damages consumer trust and users are less likely to choose your business.
NB: Please do not offer discounts or freebies for fake reviews as it is against Google rules.
How to fix it: Start incorporating the review request process into your business processes
- Teach your staff to request a review after completing a job
- Inquire by email or when sending an invoice
- Ask at the end of your phone calls
- Show customers how to leave a review
Google My Business Questions and Answers
One cool feature of Google Q&A is that you can enter and pre-populate your questions and answers that customers typically ask you. Basically, it's like creating your FAQ section right in your Google My Business listing.
Keep improving and optimizing your timesheet
Finally, continue to monitor the card as Google releases regular updates and you may miss some fields that have just been implemented.
Google My Business traffic data analysis
We all know that Google My Business is used to improve local search presence for businesses and attract new customers through reviews, photos, business information, and more. We all agree that these are very important, but how do you know if all this work is attracting more customers to your website?
Tracking your business's Google My Business data is an often overlooked aspect of any local SEO campaign. If you're a business that cares about leads and focuses on converting site traffic, Google My Business is one of the best ways to generate local leads.
How can I track Google My Business traffic to my site?
Tracking Google My Business traffic is actually very simple and there are a couple of ways to do it. The first method is to create a custom UTM tracking code. The other way to track data is done on the GMB dashboard.
If you create UTM code, this allows you to track data in both Google Analytics and Search Console. In my opinion, UTM code tracking is the best way to see all the traffic coming to your site from your Google My Business listing. As long as you have everything set up correctly, this is a very effective way to keep track of your data.
Keep an eye on your dashboard and your competitors
From time to time, in addition to answering opinions and questions, try to see your competitors. Do some research, see how you rank on Google Local Pack and if there are competitors that outperform you, try to understand why.
