Google is becoming a key component of how consumers discover products and services in their region as people rely increasingly heavily on it to get answers to their most pressing problems. Google My Business (GMB) is a free and simple tool for businesses and organizations to manage their web presence across Google.
There are various benefits to using your Google My Business page to improve your internet presence if you are a business owner.
Let’s go through why your Google My Business profile is essential, as well as the benefits of Google My Business so that you can stay on top of the latest technological advancements.
Every day, billions of people use Google to look for a local coffee shop, home repair ideas, fashion trends, celebrity news, and a variety of other things.
The search engine has easily retained its position as the world’s most popular search engine, with over 75% of the search market share, and it’s just getting bigger. Indeed, Google is claimed to get around 5.6 billion searches every day, with a high fraction of these inquiries having a local purpose. As a result, a large number of searches are performed.
This scenario may be familiar to you: It’s nearly lunchtime, and you’d like to view a list of nearby eateries where you can dine. What are your typical routines? Isn’t it easier (and more practical) to take out your phone and search for “restaurants near me” on Google?
People rely on Google for everything: the nearest gym, the most accessible dry cleaner, the closest shop where they can get Japanese miso. This is why it is critical for businesses to optimize their websites for Google searches. The more “searchable” your business is, the more likely it is to be found by potential clients.
Fortunately, this isn’t a function reserved for huge corporations. Even startups may use Google My Business to build an online presence to make it easier for consumers to locate them.
What is Google My Business, and how does it work?
For those who are unfamiliar with the service, Google My Business (or GMB) is a free internet-based tool that helps local companies market themselves online. It’s a platform that allows company owners to control how their businesses appear online throughout Google and make them stand out.
So, what’s the big deal about Google My Business?
Because Google is used by such a significant percentage of the population, your profile can be viewed and accessed by a great number of people. The more prominent you are — or the more frequently your business appears in search results — the more likely you are to attract people’s attention. It’s a more practical and imaginative alternative to traditional ads.
Why is it essential to have a Google My Business listing?
You could assume Google My Business is old news and question, “Is Google My Business relevant in 2021?” when it comes to anything tech-related in the quickly expanding digital world. We’ll just let the numbers speak for themselves. Take a look below!
- Consumers learn more about a local business online than anyplace else, according to 97 per cent of people.
Specifically, 91% of people use search engines to locate information. - If you go further, you’ll discover that Google controls over 90% of the search engine business.
- According to Google, local intent is present in 46 per cent of all queries.
- Website visits account for 56 per cent of activities on Google My Business listings. Calls to the company account for 24% of all activities. Direct searches account for 20% of all activities.
- Google My Business was used by 64% of consumers to find contact information for a local business.
- Only Google My business generates more than 100 calls per month for 16 per cent of companies.
Google My Business is definitely worth your attention, whether you’re considering creating a listing for your business or searching for the best methods to increase your local visibility.
Now, let us dive into the Top 10 Benefits of Google My Business For Local Business!
Top 10 Benefits of Google My Business For Local Business
1. Google Maps and Search Visibility
The top three items in a Google search are usually designated for Google Adwords adverts, sometimes known as “paid search.” Following that, you’ll usually see a map with three local results highlighted (thus the “3-pack” moniker). The results will then be “organic.”
Previously, the Local 3-pack was a list of seven to ten results. The move to three was made in order to better serve mobile users, who are increasingly searching for results that are close at hand on a tiny screen.
On Google’s search results page, the Local 3-pack occupies a valuable and highly prominent place. The information about your firm or group that appears on the internet.
Suppose your GMB profile appears in the Local 3-Pack for search phrases that are important to your company. In that case, you may be able to generate additional income since your company will be prominent in the results. Your Google My Business listing is less expensive than paid advertising that shows at the top of the search results since you don’t have to pay to be in the Local 3-pack.
2. Google My Business is a Low-Cost Option
GMB, as previously said, is a free business listing on one of the most popular search engines on the internet, bringing your company in front of a large number of potential clients.
There are numerous additional well-known directories for various sectors online, in addition to GMB. These postings, however, frequently come with a cost, whether it’s a monthly set charge or a yearly premium.
With the press of a mouse, potential customers may get your hours of operation, phone number, website, and directions—all at no cost to you.
Customers may get an inside peek at your business by seeing your free GMB profile, which includes information about your busiest hours as well as review ratings. If you’re just getting started or have a tight budget, every dollar counts, and having such a fantastic resource for free can let you focus your efforts elsewhere.
3. Creating a Google My Business profile and optimizing it
A well-optimized and up-to-date GMB profile tells Google that your business is relevant to customers looking for your product or service, and it may appear in the Google local 3-pack. You can improve your GMB profile with a few basic actions.
You must first claim your Google My Business profile before you can enhance it. Go to Google My Business and click on Start Now to see whether your business has already been claimed. Sign in to the Google account you use for your business and type your company’s name in the top field of the form, near to the map of your nation. Verify that you have permission to run the company.
You’ll want to double-check that your company information is correct and up-to-date once you’ve claimed your listing. This involves verifying that your operating hours are correct, that your service category is proper, and that your payment methods and other areas are free of mistakes.
After reviewing your company’s information, make sure that your company’s name, address, and phone number (also known as NAP) are similar throughout all of your web accounts, including Bing, Yelp, and other industry-specific sites. Inconsistent information confuses potential consumers and hurts your ability to rank in search results.
After you’ve double-checked that your company’s information is proper, you’ll want to include photographs that allow potential clients to “see” what you do. To make your profile stand out, use high-quality photographs of your company. Select photos of the inside of your business, your employees, how your company seems when you drive up, and other images that will help buyers choose your firm over the competitors.
What is important to your prospective customers? Reviews on the internet. If you don’t have any reviews, devise a method to solicit feedback from your customers. These endorsements can help you stand out from the competition in your field. The fact that your company’s star rating appears in the 3-pack with your name and location emphasizes how important reviews are to potential consumers when making purchase decisions.
4. Google Posts
One of the features of Google Posts is the opportunity for companies to create Posts. Companies may use posts to advertise special deals, news, events, product updates, and announcements. These changes will appear in Google Search and Maps, giving companies new options to communicate with potential consumers.
Before you publish, Google suggests that you think about what you want to urge your consumers to do. Do you want to encourage clients to visit your physical location? Do you wish to draw attention to a deal or a special? Do you wish to make a public announcement about a new feature, service, or product?
Use high-resolution photographs that support your message while sharing information using Google Posts. In four to five words, your post’s headline should summarise your promotion. Although you have the option of using up to 1,500 characters to explain your promotion or update, keep it between 150 and 300 characters.
Make sure your article includes a Call to Action, such as “Buy,” “Book online,” “Learn more,” “Call,” or “Visit,” using wording that encourages the user to take action.
Keep the following in mind to get the most out of this new feature:
- Because Google Post does not connect properly with Google Analytics, make sure to include UTM codes in your posts.
- To avoid being cropped off the sides, make sure your photographs are “center-weighted.”
- Google Posts does not yet allow animated GIFs or videos.
- A post has a seven-day lifetime, so update it regularly to stay in front of potential buyers. The only exception is a post about an event, which will remain up until the event is ended. In a carousel arrangement, your posts are shown from newest to oldest.
- Although your Post description might be 150-300 characters long, just the first 100 (or two lines of text) will appear in the “snippet,” so make every character matter.
5. Using Google My Business to Communicate
Google has recently introduced a messaging function that allows companies to communicate directly with customers who come across their profile on the search results page. Businesses will be able to rapidly answer queries and assist existing and new consumers with this service. To start receiving messages, you’ll need to enable this function in your Google My Business dashboard.
Users will not be able to see your phone number, and you will be able to receive and react to these messages via SMS or Google’s own messaging app, Allo. Visitors to your Google My Business profile will see a clickable Message symbol if you enable this option. To contact the company on an iOS device, the consumer will go straight to their messaging app.
You can appoint a member of your team to answer client queries as a business owner. Google also warns users not to use the messaging tool to send sensitive information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, or login passwords. If the messaging doesn’t correspond with your business, you may opt-in or out of the functionality using this feature.
Google warns users not to use the messaging tool to send sensitive information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, or login passwords. If the messaging doesn’t fit your company’s needs, you can simply turn this option off.
6. People may provide reviews for your business on GMB.
Customer evaluations have a lot of weight, especially when it comes to search engine results. According to another Moz research, internet reviews are considered to account for 10% of how search engines rank results.
Using GMB to make it easy for your consumers to submit good comments about your business is essential if you want to be seen in the search results.
There are a few more reasons why users should post reviews.
- Local SEO benefits from reviews.
When it comes to making purchasing decisions, many people rely on reviews. In fact, internet evaluations may affect as much as 93 percent of purchasers. To put it another way, virtually all of them.
This is due to the fact that these little blocks of text are true consumer testimonials that were not compensated by the firm to promote their product or service. As a result, they appear more credible, and many people accept what they say.
Before picking a local business, an increasing number of individuals read customer evaluations. Search engines utilize reviews to rank search results because consumers enjoy reading them. This GMB feature, if used correctly, may have a significant influence on your organization.
- Sales are boosted by reviews.
Positive feedback is important. They not only help you rank higher in search engines, but they also act as free and credible advertisements for your products or services. Customers, for example, are more likely to test out a product that has received a lot of good feedback than one that has received a lot of negative feedback.
People are just as trusting of internet reviews as they are of personal recommendations. The more good customer feedback you receive, the more opportunities you’ll have to generate leads and increase revenue. There is a favourable association between reviews and sales, according to the study.
It’s critical to obtain favorable ratings, but keep in mind that even the top companies receive bad feedback. If this happens to you, deal with it professionally. Take these critiques with a grain of salt. Instead, put them to good use in order to better your product or service. Negative reviews, when used correctly, may give valuable information to help your company grow.
- Customers’ Opinions on Your Business are Displayed in Reviews.
Customers’ perceptions about your brand may be gleaned through customer reviews. They let you to see how customers react to your products or services, as well as what strategies you should retain, what you should modify, and where you can improve.
Reviews, whether positive or negative, can assist you to understand what your customers think. Take them into account and evaluate them logically.
7. GMB Provides Insights That Are Beneficial To You
GMB is a beneficial tool for your company. It not only advertises your goods or service, but it also aids in market research.
What explains that this is possible?
Google My Business has a number of useful capabilities that may help you create plans and make decisions by providing insights into key areas. This tool gives you access to facts and insights that might help you figure out who your target audience is.
- Views
GMB can show you how many people have seen your company profile, photographs, and posts. This is especially crucial for determining the success of your efforts – whether they’re performing effectively and attracting the attention you desire, or whether they’re ineffective and costing you money.
- Requests for Information
GMB delivers a report that allows you to study and understand how customers locate your company. It reveals how people are looking for your listing, including the terms they use.
Knowing what keywords are relevant to your online presence might help you increase traffic dramatically. You may, for example, dominate relevant long-tail keywords to significantly improve the number of clicks to your web pages. This information is available from GMB.
- Engagement
GMB can show you how your followers are reacting to your content. It allows you to see what posts they like and what kind of comments they make. You’ll have a better notion of the sorts of materials that work well for your company this way.
- Audience
GMB offers a part where you can see a summary of who is following you and their profiles. You’ll be able to see their ages, genders, and even their countries of origin. These are all beneficial while creating a campaign.
- Clicks on the Link to the Website
GMB may also show you how many times your website link has been clicked.
Knowing these figures and quantifying the data can assist you in developing solid tactics. Take some time to look at the stats if you want to increase audience engagement, website traffic, and company revenue.
8. Videos and other graphics
Customers and company owners may now add videos to their accounts. The maximum video duration is 30 seconds, and video footage can take up to 24 hours to appear on the listing in Google Maps or local search results. Through their dashboard, business owners will be able to report problematic films.
What are some ways that videos may help your company?
– Videos increase engagement
– Videos promoting your services might be educational in character.
– A chance to show off your company’s goods, customer service, and internal procedures.
Videos don’t have to be elaborate, just a natural shot of your company’s surroundings. These videos should be shot at your company’s location. Any videos that are not relevant to the business location will be removed by Google. Stock photos, stock videos, and “marketing bling videos” should be avoided by business owners.
The following are the Google Business Video Guidelines: –
– Maximum video file size: 100 MB
– Video Max Duration: 30 seconds
– Minimum Video Resolution: 720p
Google Posts, Events, Offers, and Products all support videos.
9. Insights from the GMB Heat Map
Through a heat map showing places where searchers are asking directions to their business, Google My Business Heat Map insights give business owners additional transparency. This new knowledge allows business owners to identify untapped geographic zones where they might possibly grow their service based on demand.
The heat map depicts the most common places where users request directions to your address from Google Maps. The map displays the overall number of requests by city or neighbourhood, with the ability to zoom in and out.
10. Restaurant menus are now available in GMBs
Restaurant owners who manage their Google My Business profiles have access to a menu editor, which allows them to create and amend their mobile menus.
This new feature now allows company owners to have complete control over their menus without having to rely on a third-party provider.
Owners may now add and update names, descriptions, and pricing for their menu items, as well as divide the menu into categories such as appetizers, entrees, and desserts, using the new menu editor.
In Conclusion,
Setting up a Google My Business account is simple, and once it’s up and running, it takes little upkeep. If you’re short on time, you may consider enlisting the aid of a marketing partner to manage Google My Business for you. In any case, we know Google My Business isn’t a nice-to-have, but a must-have component of your marketing strategy.
Answer boxes, related queries, and even results showing in the suggestion drop-down menu are all becoming increasingly common in Google’s search results.
The benefits that Google My Business provides to local businesses are only becoming better. Set up your profile now to start reaping the benefits!
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