What are your customers finding when they search for your business online?
Google Search is a powerful gateway that connects searchers to the businesses and information that best suits their needs, which is further enhanced by Googles My Business’ free marketing listing.
This tool gives customers basic but essential information about your businesses before they even reach your website. It’s also designed to increase visibility in search, provide a better shopping experience for buyers and encourage traffic to your site and store front. We like to think of it as a modern-day phone book. Do you remember those, yeah, we do too.
We’ve recognised that not enough businesses take full advantage of Google My Business’ impressive free and valuable features,. which is why we’re bringing you a few simple reasons you should bother with Google My Business and the best ways to optimise your listing.
So, why bother with Google My Business
Having a Google My Business listing gives you control of the information about your business on Google Search and Google Maps and how it looks.
It allows you to:
- Display important business information and updates.
- Interact with customers through questions, messaging and reviews.
- Gather insights regarding about how your customers are interacting with your website and information.
Now it’s time for our hot tips on optimising your listing!
Make sure your business information is accurate and up to date
The core business information that Google asks for in their listings includes your business name, address, phone number, website and description. This helps customers learn more about what you do, where you are and what your opening hours are.
This information can be indexed by Google Search, Google Maps and Google+, providing a foundation for your local SEO. It also helps to boost your local ranking with Google’s algorithm as it often considers proximity, relevance, activity and quality of information. It’s important to keep in mind that any inconsistencies in the information will negatively impact your search ranking.
Share business updates by making posts like you would on Facebook
To keep your listing fresh and appear active, you can make posts the same way you do on social media with all the bells and whistles of links and calls to action! These might be as simple as company announcements, special offers, blog posts, events or product promotions.
We recommend posting regularly as unlike Facebook and Instagram, your posts disappear after seven days or even less if you set a shorter time frame.
Google provides insights and engagement metrics for each post to help you improve your future content so you can continue driving sales and encourage visitors to both your physical and digital store.
Optimise the ‘From the Business’ section of your profile
You can repurpose content from your ‘about us’ page on your website to tell Google and searchers as much quality information about your business as possible.
With 750 characters available, we recommend putting the key information in the first 250 characters while also being mindful to not repeat information that’s already visible in the other sections of your profile.
Ask for reviews from happy customers and always respond
Reviews have a huge influence on consumer buying with people often turning to others for their opinions when making a purchase decision.
When it comes to asking customers for reviews, kindly remind them that reviews aren’t just for your benefit. They help people who have the same pain points, wants and needs to find a solution and make an informed buying decision. According to consumers, businesses that respond to reviews are 1.7 x more trustworthy than businesses who don’t.
We love that Google also tends to bold keywords in your reviews to further validate the relevancy of the customer’s search!
As a business, it’s great if you can make the effort to respond to reviews, no matter if they’re good or bad. Not only does this incentivise other customers to leave their reviews but it’s a great way to interact with those customers who have made a purchase, showing you value the feedback they leave.
If your business doesn’t have a listing yet, you can get started today by finding out more here.
If you need help with updating information, publishing posts each week or keeping a steady stream of reviews coming in, get in touch with us at info@thinkcommunications.com.au
