If you run a business and want to reach as many people as possible, then you need to optimize your Google My Business listing. The GMB is an essential part of your online presence and if it isn’t optimized, then customers won’t come to your site or even search for your business on Google at all.

Table of Content

1. Optimize your Google My Business listing profile

• Add a description, address and phone number.
• Add a link to your website.
• Add service category
• Include service areas
• List relevant services
• Add opening and closing times.
• Add a link to your social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.
• Add links that refer customers back to Google My Business (GMB) pages, including but not limited to: Google reviews, Google Maps listing page, Facebook Page etc.

2. Encourage customer reviews

Google My Business is a great tool to help you get more visibility, but it’s also a great way to encourage reviews.

When someone leaves a positive review, they’re telling other people in their network that your business is good. And if they see that other people are leaving positive comments about your business and its services or products, they might think twice before passing by again.

When you see an opportunity for improvement like when someone leaves negative feedback, you have the opportunity to respond with something like: “We apologize for any inconvenience caused by our service not meeting expectations.”

This gives them an easy way out of leaving bad feedback and lets them know that their complaint will be addressed promptly so there’s no need for further escalation of the issue at hand.

3. Improve your business profile rating on GMB

Google My Business is an online platform that allows businesses to manage their listings and information. The GMB homepage shows you how many reviews, photos, videos and phone numbers are associated with each listing. To improve your business profile rating in GMB:

• Take photos of your storefront or office space if it’s not already done. Make sure they’re clear enough to show off the features of what makes your store unique.
• Add videos of yourself talking about why potential customers should visit you instead of other businesses nearby. These can be short six-second clips or longer 15-second ones. Just make sure they’re entertaining enough without being too long because people will get bored if they have no idea what’s going on inside these stores/offices/etc. They also want fast access to informative material about them so give them something quick yet informative with some humour thrown in there as well.
• Upload pictures of your product or service. Share pictures of customers wearing or using your product, product display pictures, behind the scene pictures and videos.

4. Create a Google Posts content strategy

Learn how to create a Google Posts content strategy with these tips:

• Understand what Google Posts is, how it works and why it’s important.
• Create a Google Posts content strategy that will help you get more traffic from your blog or site.
• Measure the success of your Google Posts content strategy by tracking views on each post.
• Compare your post over time to know what works and post more of that.

Helpful article: Use these five content types for your digital marketing

5. Respond to reviews quickly

When a customer leaves a review, it is important to respond quickly. The sooner you can get back to them and let them know that their review has been read, the better for your business ratings.

It’s also important because responding quickly encourages more reviews from customers who may have been waiting for someone else to contact them first before leaving an honest opinion.

6. Use GMB Insights to gain valuable insights

• Use Google My Business Insights to gain valuable insights into your business.
• Understanding how you’re performing in local search results can help you improve your marketing strategies and make informed decisions based on the data.
• Google My Business Insights will show you:
• How many times a customer has visited your site across all devices (desktop, mobile and tablet) over time;
• The types of searches that are driving traffic to each page;
• What other businesses are ranking for similar keywords; and more?

7. Boost your local SEO rankings with citations

Citations are links to your business on other websites. They help Google understand what you do, which can increase your local SEO rankings.

You can get citations from directories like Yelp and Yellow Pages, blogs like TechCrunch or The Next Web, social media profiles of clients/customers who have used your service (or similar services), or by creating an article on a site that covers topics relevant to what you do as a company.

Citation building is a long-term strategy and should be done consistently over time so Google knows about all of the things that make you unique.

8. Encourage customers to share photos of your business

• Encourage customers to share photos of your business.
• Customers are more likely to share photos of their experience with you on Google if they see other people doing so.
• Photos can be used as an opportunity for marketing and advertising, but also as a way for customers to show off what they love about your business and how much it means to them!

Your customers are searching for businesses on google and you need to be there.

Your customers are searching for businesses on Google and you need to be there. Click here to create or update your Google My Business listing.

That’s why it’s important that you optimize your website, so that when someone searches for “businesses in your area”, they’ll find yours.

Conclusion

Now you’ve optimized your GMB listing and are ready to take it to the next level. We hope that this article has helped you understand how important it is for businesses to optimize their presence on Google My Business.