Importance of Google My Business to a Local Business
Companies big and small often think of Facebook and YouTube ads to increase traffic for their website but fail to consider this jewel called Google My Business. Listing your business on Google My Business enables your page to appear on local search results. Contact details, website link, information about the business open and close times, and a few other information on GMB helps boost both lead generation and conversion. Local businesses profit the most by adding their details on Google My Business. Google search results show your details whenever someone looks up a product or service in a nearby location.
What is GMB, and how does it work?
As a free marketing tool, Google My Business enables local small business owners to display their business page on Google maps, search, and sidebar. The optimized content helps the business page show on the local search results, Google maps, and Google sidebar. Verifying business data is vital for businesses to list on Google My Business. However, the content on GMB also needs to be accurate and search engine optimized to improve ranking on the search results. The SEO content enables potential customers to consider the products/ services offered by the local business.
Top reasons to list on Google My Business:
- Improves visibility on the web
- Enables potential customers to receive more information about your business
- Messaging feature allows the real-time response to customer queries
- Positive Customer reviews help to bring more business
- Free Advertising on Google
- Improves sales and website traffic
While Google My Business works well for all business sizes, small and local businesses may benefit more from the listing. Online search is a part of our daily lives. Through Google My Business, small and local businesses can appear in many queries and search results and work as a free advertisement to a larger audience.
How to use GMB effectively?
- Ask for reviews
- Provide accurate information
- Communicate with potential customers directly through messenger
- Utilized the Google posts to share the latest updates on your business
- Google My Business insights to track data on potential customers
Benefits of using Google My Business
More than five billion searches are made each day on Google making it the perfect place for small businesses to make themselves known for a larger audience. So listing your business on Google My Business could prove beneficial for multiple reasons other than the fact that it is free.
Cost-Effective
GMB is a free listing on the biggest search engine on the web. Local small businesses can add details on products, upload video/ images, gain insights, post reviews, and much more for free of cost. Business listings on other noteworthy directories often come with a periodically payable fee with limited available services.
Increased Visibility
Small local businesses can gain a prime spot on the search results. The first few spots on the Google Maps results are available for the Google Adwords advertisements. The next three-pack areas are the local results, and finally, the organic search results. The three-pack spot is where a Google My Business listing is visible. Appearing in this spot makes it a much better choice in comparison with the paid ads.
Optimization of Business profile
Name of the business, contact details, operating hours, and other relevant details must be consistent across all the platforms and may cause a negative impact because of inconsistent data and can cause a problem with the rankings. Adding high-quality images of the business, staff members, process of work/ end product enables potential customers to choose you over other competitors. Online reviews work like unpaid advertisements. Positive feedback is the endorsements that help convert potential leads into customers.
Google Posts (product offer posts)
Local small businesses can make the most of the Google posts by posting updates on the product, promotions, offers, events, and other product-related news. Regular updates help to attract more traffic and help potential customers to decide with the abundant information available. However, high-resolution images, attractive and crisp titles/ headlines, and Call to Action are a few points to consider when drafting Google posts.
Messenger
The messenger feature launched by Google helps businesses to communicate with their customers directly. Answering queries and converting potential leads into customers is made simpler with the messaging feature. Turning on this feature enables users to click on the message icon to post their queries.
Video
Videos with a maximum length of thirty seconds can be uploaded and can take up to twenty-four hours to appear on the Google map listings. Higher engagement, showcasing the products/ services, and informational inputs about the business are all possible with the videos.
Insights
The Heat map provides opportunity inputs to business owners on untapped locations. Browsing details by city, neighborhood, and other insightful data enable business owners to make data-driven decisions at a strategic level.
Conclusion
About 80% of the searches on Google, meaning a considerable part of the market relies on the Google search results (from the first page) to find the products/ services they need. Creating a business profile with consistent, accurate, and optimized data helps small local businesses to drive more traffic to their website. An increase in sales, earning the trust of their customers, and improved engagement with the target audience free of cost are a few other benefits of listing on Google My Business. By using GMB, small and local businesses can drive more traffic to their website, acquire the three-pack spot on the Google search results, and improve conversions. While it is a cost-effective method compared to paid advertisements, it is vital to optimizing the content that is best suited to individual businesses.