Google My Business | What Is It All About?
Google My Business commonly known as (GMB) is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organisations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. Google has improved their search algorithm and performance which incorporate google my business functionality inside, making Google My Business (GMB) a must have tool for all local businesses.
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In the Past, when someone comes online, go to google.com and do a search, Google will find the most relevant website to the keywords they search for and display them to the searcher. Which is what we are already familiar with Search Engine Optimization. Since then, Google and Google Map had been working towards creating a simple guide for Local Users. In 2014, Google Local Guides is a program launched by Google Maps to enable its users to contribute to Google Maps and it provides them additional perks and benefits for the work. (mentioned in wiki) This move greatly improved how Google searchers and their search quality. It brings us better and more geographical search performance than before
These searches we called it “Local Search” in our context, Google will find those within that area and present it to you, in the GMB Listing Column where it is located on the top of the search result, above the organic search results.
Now when potential consumer searches online, certain keywords will automatically trigger google search to find something “near you”.
Over the years, Local SEO is becoming an essential tool to success in your digital marketing strategy, as GMB plays a big part in the Local SEO context and search performance.
GMB is not just an algorithm, it helps searchers to find information about your company and business a lot faster than the past. Google aims to continue evolving their search performance to bring you faster, quicker, and better search results as possible. With GMB, you can now provide your searchers information about your business, such as your opening times, your address, the products and services you offer, and a link to your website.
Google My Business | Setting Up Your Business Listing
Now let’s get our hand dirty right away, creating a listing in GMB is easy! All you need is just a google account, go to Google My Business URL: https://www.google.com/business/. Login to GMB, go and find your business and request them to send you a confirmation code, and after completing that step, you can start your journey of capturing your customer online!
Sounds simple? Well setting it up should be as simple as possible.
Do you need a Step by Step guide?
We had created a step by step guide to create your GMB listing. Check out this link to setup your GMB listing.
Google My Business | Setting Up Your Business Profile
After you had been verified by Google, you can start updating your information to your consumer online!
Business Name | Business Opening Hours | Business Contact Numbers
Name of your company has to be exactly the same as your website or actual company given name, some people like to try by identifying their name base on the keywords people searching for such as “German Food”, so hoping that people who search for German Food, their GMB listing will appear first ahead of others. Unless their company name is “German Food Pte Ltd”, I will suggest to stick to your actual company name instead of being too smart. Google will ban fake company names, if you are being reported. Inaccurate information can damage your listings and your search engine rankings.
Opening Hours is very important to a business and you have to be very sure about what you are working on. if you placed 24hours, you might just receive calls from clients in the middle of the night. SO CAREFUL FOR WHAT YOU PLACED ON. ?
Like I mentioned before, not just Opening hours you need to be aware and be careful of, pen down your contact details are equally as important as well. If you had placed the wrong number or email, your leads will be gone to waste.
Just imagine someone found you online, and decided to drop you an email to contact you, but your email address is wrong, he might be sending to no one, and no one replied to him, resulting this deal gone to another person’s hand. This can be bad for your business.
Google My Business | Updating Your Business Reviews
Reviews are critical and as a matter of fact, Google My Business Reviews holds a very high authority, as many consumers will actually look into the reviews and evaluate you. According to a BrightLocal survey, 74% of consumers say positive reviews make them trust a business; According to this BrightLocal Consumer Review Survey 2019, 82% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses, with 52% of 18-54-year-olds saying they ‘always’ read reviews.
Google places reviews in a high position, which means when your reviews are bad, it will generally affect your position in Google as well, pulling you lower than your competitors.
Responding to Your Reviews
In Google My Business Review, they allow us to respond to the reviews, which in a way allow you to “Update” your account whenever you need. (as mentioned in the lower part of the article). By replying to the reviews, it will allow the customers to feel that you valued their feedback and suggestions as well.
Having a bad review does not mean that you do not have to respond to it, by responding to negative feedback or reviews, also position you as being professional and ready to handle clients directly. No one is perfect, but the willingness to work towards perfection is something not everyone can do.
Bear in mind, everyone is looking at your response, replying to good reviews is easy, and responding to bad reviews is a must too. Responding to them with professionalism can also help you in driving clients to you as well.
Google My Business | Keep Your Business Updated
Once all setup is just the beginning of your digital marketing using Google My Business journey, along the way you will need to constantly be updating your posts and checking your reviews, messages and also if you happen to change your information, you should keep your GMB updated as well.
GMB really is a powerful tool and should be an essential part of any SEO strategy.
Let me know if you need any help from here! Or check out our other blogs for more information about Google My Business.
Google My Business | FAQ
Time to answer some of your questions!
In Short, the answer is Yes. They can suggest to you how your GMB listing’s information should be.
At this moment, Hashtag is not one of the features in Google My Business and I will suggest you to save up on tagging and make full use of the available text area to project yourselves based on the post that was posted.
Google will only remove those reviews that are truly violating the google policies. Please see Google Review Policy for more details. However what you can do is to respond to the review by finding out the cause and the background of the story.
Once you confirm that this is spam, you can proceed by flagging the post as spam and Google will review it and remove it if it deem necessary!
You can request from google to have the business listing re-verify so that you can gain back the Primary Ownership access.
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