Do you want to know more about how to optimise your Google My Business listing (or you don’t know what that is)? You’ve come to the right place.
Getting your business found online is increasingly important as businesses are looking for better ways to reach their audiences. If you want to build a strong online presence, it’s essential you optimise your Google My Business listing.
Considering that 46% of all searches on Google are directly seeking local information and 97% of consumers search for local businesses on the Internet , such a benefit is needed.
Google My Business (GMB) is an impressive tool and it’s free. If you haven’t created your listing yet, we strongly recommend that you do.
We’ve collected all the useful information you need to know about a Google My Business listing and six important steps that you can take to optimise it.
What is a Google My Business listing?
So, let’s just quickly recap on exactly what Google My Business is.
Let’s just say hypothetically you are looking for an ‘SEO company near me’, so you tap this into Google search.
What comes up?
A map with business listings with a range of different SEO companies?
You have now been introduced to Google My Business or GMB for short.
GMB is a free tool that lets you manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps. That includes adding your business name, location, and hours; monitoring and replying to customer reviews; adding photos; learning where and how people are searching for you, and more –Hubspot
What you may not know is how influential this tool is. It goes well beyond just being a business listing on a local map. Pairing it with some quality SEO is going to help you boost your online presence as well as targeting your audience.
In a nutshell, GMB is a powerful tool that allows you to manage your business in Google Maps and Google Search.
Why your GMB listing matters
The GMB platform is a way to get your business seen, particularly by a local audience. You can add your business listing to Google maps, create a free Google business page, open yourself up to reviews from customers and so much more that will benefit your business.
If you optimise your Google My Business listing correctly, over time it will bring you a great deal of highly targeted traffic. Based on local people and specific search terms or keywords, it will help your business to be found online.
That’s why you really can’t afford not to optimise your Google My Business.
Going back to our example of a Google search for an ‘SEO company near me’. You get a whole list of different businesses right?
- Why is one business ranked higher than the other?
- How would a business increase its ranking on Google maps?
- How does SEO help optimise my Google Business listing?
How to create your GMB listing
If you are not already signed up to GMB, you can easily find out how to create a listing.
Or, get in touch with an expert who can help.
You can download the My Business app for ease of use too.
How to optimise your GMB listing
SEO and keywords are not just for websites and web content. With a GMB listing, you can optimise it by using keywords that will target your traffic which should be your main objective.
These next six steps are what you should focus on to optimise your listing to get the most out of it.
Description
You have 750 words to accurately capture who your business is and what it is you do. 750 words is actually a lot, and once you have your keywords sorted out this is where you can add them in. This is a really great way to optimise Google My Business to boost your rankings and online presence.
This is your chance to shine – make sure you really define everything you do whether it’s services or products you offer. Capturing your customers’ search terms or keywords accurately will help you be found where you want to be found, and rank your GMB listing higher than others.
The closer you can correlate the two the better your GMB ranking will be.
Categories
The categories section is where you decide where your business services fit best.
So for example, if you owned a Japanese Restaurant your main service category is restaurant, your second category is your chance to be more targeted so it could be, “Japanese restaurant” or something like “Japanese delicatessen” or “Japanese sweet shop”.
We suggest selecting two categories and no more or less – otherwise, you can confuse the notoriously picky Google algorithms and end up actually being harder to find.
Think about your core offerings and your keywords. Matching these to your chosen categories will help you be found. Think beyond the generic category you fit into and think of something more specific to you. Another example, rather than a ‘supermarket’ are you a ‘health supermarket’, or ‘health food store’ or ‘organic produce supermarket’ or something else?
Photos and images
One picture is worth a thousand words – Fred R. Barnard.
Images are an excellent tool for keeping your business current and relevant. Updating your images regularly will not only impress customers or potential clients, but Google will see that you are regularly contributing to your GMB listing. This helps to boost your listing through relevancy and is a great way to enhance your listing to perform well.
Make sure your images are of good quality and only show your best work. You want to entice people to click on your business listing, so make it look good. Great images are also a good way to capture the attention of customers and will encourage readers to click through to your website.
There are many tutorials online that can help you level up your photography skill set.
Geo-tags
What are geo-tags? Geo-tags are the coordinates that are assigned to the metadata of photos and images. The way that geo-tags work is that they store information about location in the metadata of the photos.
Why are geo-tags important in optimizing your GMB listing?
The data in a photo will help Google to see the location the image was taken from. Then Google can match the location and your business to customers in your area. Using geo-tags means Google will be more likely to show your business to people within the region of the geo-tag.
Don’t worry, they aren’t as scary as they may sound. You can learn how to set this up on your phone or add geo-tags to your images here.
Setting this up as part of optimising your GMB listing is going to help increase your visibility in the area you operate within or from.
Reviews
Yes, they do help and yes you absolutely do need reviews. Reviews are highly relied on by customers. You would be surprised at how many people disregard this part of the GMB tool. But it is a tool, and you need to use it – you wouldn’t hammer in a nail without a hammer.
Make sure that you ask clients to add reviews for your business. You can easily do this by logging into your Google My Business dashboard and copying the link and then emailing to clients with a request. Or, simply just search for your business listing on Google, copy the URL, paste into an email, and away you go.
Reviews are not only part of the overall optimisation process but they help to build your business identity and brand and build trust with people. Reviews from satisfied customers are a great way to encourage people to choose your business.
Reviews will also help to boost your ranking. Conversely, if you do get a bad review there are some good guides about what you can do, read more here.
Include all relevant information
As part of the plan to optimise your Google My Business listing, you need to add in all relevant information. This includes your website link URL.
There are many more things that can be added to your GMB, like your business hours – even your Covid-19 hours, your contact information, attributes, and much more. These all work together to give a representation of your business to potential clients.
Your Google My Business listing not only builds trust and enhances your reputation but also makes it that much easier for customers to communicate with you. When people find your business you want them to have all your information – so they can find you easily.
#Just make sure you keep your information up to date and relevant in your business listing to help you rank higher.
In summary, these are the reasons why you need to optimise your Google My Business listing now for highly targeted traffic. It will help your business to stand out amongst your competitors and drive more targeted traffic to you. Utilising the different tools of GMB alongside a solid SEO and content strategy will help you build a strong online presence.
If you want to learn more about how you can increase traffic and sales through SEO and content strategy, or even just to learn more about Google My Business get in touch with us today. We have an experienced team that can set you up so that your business stands out online.
