Formerly known as “Google My Business”, your Google Business account gives you the ability to appear on Google Search, Maps and Shopping with a personalised profile, boosting your visibility across a range of Google services.
Creating a profile is free and allows you to add vital information to help turn casual searchers into new customers, like your business hours, photos and videos of your goods/services, and latest offers. Here’s a little more about why we think Google Business profiles are so important:
Be discoverable
If my car broke down and I needed the number of a local mechanic, there’s a high chance that I’d pull out my phone, head to Google, and search “Mechanic near me”. I could then see what businesses were operating nearby, how well they’re reviewed, their opening hours and perhaps even their fees. But only if they had a Google Business account.
This is why your profile is so important. As a space to represent your business, potential customers can access information that tells them where and how they can use your services and is a really vital step in improving your local SEO.
Showcase credibility
Google reviews are an incredibly important part of building trust and reputation online, and over 60% of customers say they use Google reviews as part of their decision making when looking to buy.
Google Business allows you to showcase your credibility by pushing customers to review your services, allowing future profile visitors to see how real people have experienced your business and get a good first impression. As a business, you can reply to all reviews (whether favourable or unfavourable) and provide more context or just say thanks, and you can also flag any false reviews or spam reviews with Google through your account.
Google also now give you the ability to share a direct link with customers and clients, taking them directly to your page to ensure it’s as easy as possible for them to leave their feedback.
Learn from data
Google Business is also a powerful tool in understanding how people find you, and offers insight into keywords used to find you, as well as data on reviews and other elements that give you more knowledge on how you’re connecting with your customers and clients.
Your account gives you the ability to track performance over an adjustable time period, and further allows you to break down insight across:
- Views on your listing
- How your listing has been found
- Where your listing has been found
- Actions taken on your listing (website visits, phone calls, etc)
Optimise for the best results
Like all business profiles, whether they be on social media or search engines, Google Business accounts need to be optimised to work in the most effective way.
Here are just a few of the ways a profile can be optimised:
- Completing all parts of the profile – fully complete profiles are more than twice as likely to be visited than incomplete ones.
- Successfully verify your location – verifying your location ensures Google knows you are not a spam account and increases your chances of appearing for local searches on maps.
- Great quality images and videos – this is a space for customers to get a feel for your business, so avoid using stock photography. Investing the time into getting real photo/video content of your business that is high quality ensures the best chance of a good first impression.
- Keyword optimise – your Google Business profile gives plenty of space to write about your business and its services, so make sure they’re optimised for the keywords people are likely to search for!
- Get reviews – promoting and encouraging reviews ensures that your business looks like it is getting a steady stream of customers and also signifies to searchers that your service is high quality and trusted.
There are also ways to further optimise your profile depending on industry and requirements, such as adding menus and stunning photos of food for restaurants and cafes or check-in/out times for hotels or BnBs.
For those that want to fully optimise their profile, but are unsure how to proceed, get in touch to talk about how we can help.
