Google My Business
Google My Business, also known as GMB for short is a free web tool, which help local businesses to achieve higher visibility on Google Search for relevant local searches.
Updated: May 31, 2024
Google My Business:
Google My Business, also known as GMB for short is a free web tool, which help local businesses to achieve higher visibility on Google Search for relevant local searches.Local companies owner can control and improve their visibility on Google Search by using Google My Business.Your business will stand out against your competitors in your local area by optimizing your listing and page.The opportunities your customers can see and engage with your business increases by occupying more space on the web, especially on Google Search.Most of the users when searching for local businesses for services, start their customer journeys on Google Search. So, it is essential to be found on relevant terms for those servicesYour results from other online marketing channels can be improved by using Google My Business and return on investments can also be improved.It is very essential to include GMB in your overall marketing strategy, including your website and other advertising channelsFoot traffic for different branches of a business can be improved with Google My Business.
Benefits of Google My Business:
Although GMB is more suitable for local businesses, it can also offer unique benefits for other types of companies as well.
Better Visibility Can be Provided From Google Search:
- Traffic can be increased from Google Maps and Local Searches (Local SEO).
- Higher search ranking positions (SERP) in related search terms in the local area of your business can be achieved as Google My Business is strongly visible in local search terms.
- Smaller companies will be able to compete with companies with a more substantial online presence in your local area by optimizing your local SEO.
- The optimization of Google My Business is essential for standing out and making your services more available to customers near you.
- Local SEO or Local search, and it's optimization, refers to the search engine optimization of your website and utilization of GMB to improve your local reach on Google Search which helps customers to find you and your services easily at the right time when they are searching for relevant businesses and services nearby.
More Visibility Can be Provided on Google Search, and Google Maps:
- The listings of GMB are visible to the relevant search terms between Google Ads spots and the first organic search results on Google Search
- The listing will be visible to the right of the search on desktop and mobile when customers search directly with the name of your company.
- The listing will be visible below the ads and the first organic result.
- the process of contacting you for them will be speed up when customers can find your company on Google Maps.
- Your business can be made more discoverable and more attractive on the search by finding your address on Google maps with the proper listing, which can help drive more sales to you.
- The crucial information will be displayed by Google My Business listings which can be seen in Google Maps on the left on the desktop to help customers make quick decisions on the spot to make them go to you.
Google My Business and The Local Pack:
- A few relevant companies which can be up to three companies and their profiles, and their locations can be displayed on Google Maps in the local pack.
- Crucial business info of nearby relevant businesses such as opening hours, company name, address, reviews, relevant Category, type of Business and an image of the business can be displayed for the customers to help them make a better choice.
- It is crucial to gain these local pack positions for your business to stand out as a lot of space is taken by the local pack on Google Search when searching with relevant terms.
- Being first to be displayed on organic results might not be enough if your website and business aren't locally optimized because of the nature of how the local pack works.
- You should be able to see what competitors are in your local pack to make better decisions on how to stand out against them.
Google My Business Reviews:
- Reviews are very crucial tool for any business to use as it help build trust, create and show approachable experiences, build brand recognition, and drive sales to your business.
- Your local visibility on Google Search can be improved by reviews shown in Google My Business listing as online reviews can influence the customer.
- Online reviews is strongly linked with building visibility and trust online, especially in Google Search.
- It is a great way to bring free and positive visibility in the search engine with positive reviews provided by the customers.
- A great way to improve your local SEO is to collect reviews, as customers will see available reviews first when they are about purchasing something.
- Quickly made purchase decisions such as local retail and restaurants are mostly affected by the availability of online reviews.
- Most customers will go through the reviews when finalizing their purchasing decisions, and these reviews also function as positive endorsements for services.
Collecting Reviews with Google My Business:
- Collecting reviews can be hard or tedious if there is no proper way to collect them.
- Google My Business can be used by both businesses and customers for collecting and displaying online reviews.
- A review can be provided by a customer directly on Google Search on a Google My Business listing.
- Using GMB for reviews is free.
- The process can be faster and easier for customers by integrating the collection of online reviews in your sales funnel.
- An email-sequence can be introduced after purchase that would tell your customers to leave a review or you can say to your customers directly about leaving a review in a retail environment.
- The owners will be aware of what the customers honestly think of their business and its services by online reviews for businesses.
- You will get a chance to correct the problems of customer and offer an opportunity to fix customer pain points with negative reviews to improve customer experiences.
- A fixed negative review can help other customers think that you are actively trying to make better decisions to improve their customer experiences, which will lead to improved sales definitely.
Business Information to be Displayed In Google Search:
- You can update and show your crucial business information in real-time for the customers who are searching for you with Google My Business listing.
- The most updated information of your business will be shown by updating your details through Google My Business account.
- The latest info you have submitted in your listing will always be shown by GBM.
- It might take some time for the search engine to crawl it if your only updating your information on your website.
- The time of your customer might be saved when making important decisions when deciding where to buy by providing the basic updated info quickly at a glance directly from your profile.
- Your Google My Business profile with Company name, Address, Phone number, Recent images, Industry, Opening hours, Reviews, Website and Google My Business posts can be displayed for your customer, when searching your business on Google Search.
Google My Business Posts:
- You can create offers, add products, give news, and other updates directly on Google Search by utilizing your Google My Business posts within your profile.
- You can choose from different call-to-actions within a Google My Business post to increase clickthrough rates such as buy, learn more, sign up, call now, and more.
- You can have a better idea of what kind of content you should make, to stand out as you can see what kind of posts your competitors are creating inside your profile.
- Google My Business posts that are published will be visible in the latter part of the profile when relevant searches trigger your profile to show.
- Your overall clickthrough rates to your website can be increased by experimenting with different post types, which help increasing traffic to your company's website.
- You should create new posts on a regular basis as old posts expires in seven days.
- Google My Business Posts can be in your content distribution strategy.
- It is beneficial to have the ability to recycle content created for Facebook, LinkedIn, or Youtube ads.
- You should modify your content to fit the format of GMB posts when reusing content.
- You can reach more customers within Google Search, especially on those lucrative local searches by adding GBM posts as an addition to your content marketing strategy.
Cost of Google My Business:
Google My Business is a free tool that can be used by every company in their marketing strategy.It a cost-effective addition to any online marketing strategy as its optimization and use won't take much of your time.Optimizing and managing a Google My Business listing will benefit your company quickly with improved visibility within Google.The benefits of Google My Business can be gained for yourself by spending time in the initial optimization, and managing company updates
Insights and Analytics of Google My Business:
Companies valuable data can be provided Google My Business Insights that can be employed by businesses to improve their visibility, increase engagement, and ultimately salesYou more easily understand and create actionable goals with GMB by taking action with the provided dataData collected with Google My Business Insight is mostly relevant to the profile itself which is useful to make better decisions when you can see quick summaries of relevant web data of your business.Visibility metrics and engagement metrics are two categories of metrics that are available from Google My Business Insight.
Visibility Metrics:
- You can see how many views your profile, its images, and posts have gained in a specific period with visibility metrics.
- You can track how different marketing campaigns have affected your Google My Business profile visibility and reach in the Google Search by tracking visibility.
- The best performing campaigns can be replicated again to achieve the highest returns for your campaigns.
- You should also test new ideas all the time alongside the best performing campaigns.
- You can conclude wherein the search engine your profile was shown and how your customers have found your profile with 'How customers search for your business' report which will tell you the keywords that triggered your profile for your customers.
- You will be able to appropriate the said keywords in your SEO strategy by understanding what keywords have triggered your profile early which will give you ideas on what keywords you should include in the plan.
- The report displays Direct Search, Discovery Search and Brand Search categories in a total search.
- A breakdown of how your images are viewed compared to similar businesses can be provided by Photo views.
- Report will show you where the customer saw your business inside Google which will tell you the number of views you have gained on Google Maps or Google Search
- Views in GMB are impressions which means how many times users have seen the profile and its posts.
Engagement Metrics:
- The number of website clicks, calls, and direction requests your profile has had can be known by Engagement metrics in Google My Business.
- You can improve and optimize your Google My Business profile and your business itself by utilizing engagement metrics.
- Any business that is looking to find growth within their current audiences can utilize Engagement Metrics of Google My Business to understand how customer engages with their business.
Optimization of Google My Business Account and Profile:
- Check your spelling and your styling while adding information about your business.
- The information about your business should be correct and you should keep it updated at all times.
- You should choose a category that matches your business and its industry the best.
- The correct delivery information such as postal codes, neighborhoods, and cities should be added if our business delivers products and services to the home.
- The address of your business should be verified as your profile won't show up in Google if you have not verified your address.
- Detailed information about your products and services should be added.
- Relevant keywords to your business should be used in descriptions and posts.
- Relevant images of your business such as Inside of your business, outside of your business, logos, etc. should be added.
- Customer reviews and messages should be managed and answered.
- Insights data can be used to improve your business and your GMB profile.
- Google Ads can be used to create local ads to promote your business in your area.
- Traffic can be increased from Google Maps and Local Searches (Local SEO).
- Higher search ranking positions (SERP) in related search terms in the local area of your business can be achieved as Google My Business is strongly visible in local search terms.
- Smaller companies will be able to compete with companies with a more substantial online presence in your local area by optimizing your local SEO.
- The optimization of Google My Business is essential for standing out and making your services more available to customers near you.
- Local SEO or Local search, and it's optimization, refers to the search engine optimization of your website and utilization of GMB to improve your local reach on Google Search which helps customers to find you and your services easily at the right time when they are searching for relevant businesses and services nearby.
- The listings of GMB are visible to the relevant search terms between Google Ads spots and the first organic search results on Google Search
- The listing will be visible to the right of the search on desktop and mobile when customers search directly with the name of your company.
- The listing will be visible below the ads and the first organic result.
- the process of contacting you for them will be speed up when customers can find your company on Google Maps.
- Your business can be made more discoverable and more attractive on the search by finding your address on Google maps with the proper listing, which can help drive more sales to you.
- The crucial information will be displayed by Google My Business listings which can be seen in Google Maps on the left on the desktop to help customers make quick decisions on the spot to make them go to you.
- A few relevant companies which can be up to three companies and their profiles, and their locations can be displayed on Google Maps in the local pack.
- Crucial business info of nearby relevant businesses such as opening hours, company name, address, reviews, relevant Category, type of Business and an image of the business can be displayed for the customers to help them make a better choice.
- It is crucial to gain these local pack positions for your business to stand out as a lot of space is taken by the local pack on Google Search when searching with relevant terms.
- Being first to be displayed on organic results might not be enough if your website and business aren't locally optimized because of the nature of how the local pack works.
- You should be able to see what competitors are in your local pack to make better decisions on how to stand out against them.
- Reviews are very crucial tool for any business to use as it help build trust, create and show approachable experiences, build brand recognition, and drive sales to your business.
- Your local visibility on Google Search can be improved by reviews shown in Google My Business listing as online reviews can influence the customer.
- Online reviews is strongly linked with building visibility and trust online, especially in Google Search.
- It is a great way to bring free and positive visibility in the search engine with positive reviews provided by the customers.
- A great way to improve your local SEO is to collect reviews, as customers will see available reviews first when they are about purchasing something.
- Quickly made purchase decisions such as local retail and restaurants are mostly affected by the availability of online reviews.
- Most customers will go through the reviews when finalizing their purchasing decisions, and these reviews also function as positive endorsements for services.
- Collecting reviews can be hard or tedious if there is no proper way to collect them.
- Google My Business can be used by both businesses and customers for collecting and displaying online reviews.
- A review can be provided by a customer directly on Google Search on a Google My Business listing.
- Using GMB for reviews is free.
- The process can be faster and easier for customers by integrating the collection of online reviews in your sales funnel.
- An email-sequence can be introduced after purchase that would tell your customers to leave a review or you can say to your customers directly about leaving a review in a retail environment.
- The owners will be aware of what the customers honestly think of their business and its services by online reviews for businesses.
- You will get a chance to correct the problems of customer and offer an opportunity to fix customer pain points with negative reviews to improve customer experiences.
- A fixed negative review can help other customers think that you are actively trying to make better decisions to improve their customer experiences, which will lead to improved sales definitely.
- You can update and show your crucial business information in real-time for the customers who are searching for you with Google My Business listing.
- The most updated information of your business will be shown by updating your details through Google My Business account.
- The latest info you have submitted in your listing will always be shown by GBM.
- It might take some time for the search engine to crawl it if your only updating your information on your website.
- The time of your customer might be saved when making important decisions when deciding where to buy by providing the basic updated info quickly at a glance directly from your profile.
- Your Google My Business profile with Company name, Address, Phone number, Recent images, Industry, Opening hours, Reviews, Website and Google My Business posts can be displayed for your customer, when searching your business on Google Search.
- You can create offers, add products, give news, and other updates directly on Google Search by utilizing your Google My Business posts within your profile.
- You can choose from different call-to-actions within a Google My Business post to increase clickthrough rates such as buy, learn more, sign up, call now, and more.
- You can have a better idea of what kind of content you should make, to stand out as you can see what kind of posts your competitors are creating inside your profile.
- Google My Business posts that are published will be visible in the latter part of the profile when relevant searches trigger your profile to show.
- Your overall clickthrough rates to your website can be increased by experimenting with different post types, which help increasing traffic to your company's website.
- You should create new posts on a regular basis as old posts expires in seven days.
- Google My Business Posts can be in your content distribution strategy.
- It is beneficial to have the ability to recycle content created for Facebook, LinkedIn, or Youtube ads.
- You should modify your content to fit the format of GMB posts when reusing content.
- You can reach more customers within Google Search, especially on those lucrative local searches by adding GBM posts as an addition to your content marketing strategy.
Cost of Google My Business:
- You can see how many views your profile, its images, and posts have gained in a specific period with visibility metrics.
- You can track how different marketing campaigns have affected your Google My Business profile visibility and reach in the Google Search by tracking visibility.
- The best performing campaigns can be replicated again to achieve the highest returns for your campaigns.
- You should also test new ideas all the time alongside the best performing campaigns.
- You can conclude wherein the search engine your profile was shown and how your customers have found your profile with 'How customers search for your business' report which will tell you the keywords that triggered your profile for your customers.
- You will be able to appropriate the said keywords in your SEO strategy by understanding what keywords have triggered your profile early which will give you ideas on what keywords you should include in the plan.
- The report displays Direct Search, Discovery Search and Brand Search categories in a total search.
- A breakdown of how your images are viewed compared to similar businesses can be provided by Photo views.
- Report will show you where the customer saw your business inside Google which will tell you the number of views you have gained on Google Maps or Google Search
- Views in GMB are impressions which means how many times users have seen the profile and its posts.
- The number of website clicks, calls, and direction requests your profile has had can be known by Engagement metrics in Google My Business.
- You can improve and optimize your Google My Business profile and your business itself by utilizing engagement metrics.
- Any business that is looking to find growth within their current audiences can utilize Engagement Metrics of Google My Business to understand how customer engages with their business.
- Check your spelling and your styling while adding information about your business.
- The information about your business should be correct and you should keep it updated at all times.
- You should choose a category that matches your business and its industry the best.
- The correct delivery information such as postal codes, neighborhoods, and cities should be added if our business delivers products and services to the home.
- The address of your business should be verified as your profile won't show up in Google if you have not verified your address.
- Detailed information about your products and services should be added.
- Relevant keywords to your business should be used in descriptions and posts.
- Relevant images of your business such as Inside of your business, outside of your business, logos, etc. should be added.
- Customer reviews and messages should be managed and answered.
- Insights data can be used to improve your business and your GMB profile.
- Google Ads can be used to create local ads to promote your business in your area.