Google My Business has a unique power to utilize search engine results to match with your marketing effort, this is a great benefit for brick and mortar businesses. For anyone that is in need of your product or service, the first place to try to find an answer is Google search. According to data from Google, 46% of searches on the platform have intentions for local content and that location seems to be the key information these searchers are looking for. This is to tell you how much you are missing if your business has not been listed on the platform.
What then is Google My Business?
This is an initiative of Google to help businesses and marketers to organize how they will want their profile to be read on Google search and identified on Google Map. So, it is a free marketing tool by Google that you don’t have to pay for. Your profile includes the name of your company, address, time of operation, and a direct link to your website.
To get your business listed, all you need to do is to create a Google My Business account or you might probably use an existing account profile. This is the very first step in preparing your business for local SEO plans. It becomes very easy for anyone seeking information abo0ut your brand or business to find you and also review your business. This is more reason why the information you provide must be genuine and accurate.
The question now is, why does your business needs Google My Business?
It Gives Your Business More Visibility On Google:
When people try to search for products and services on Google, the first thing that appears is Adwords, followed by maps to local stores that offer such products and services before you begin to see organic web results. This is one of the greatest benefits of listing on Google My Business. This means your business has increased visibility through the free Google program.
There are numerous websites providing the same service or product that you provide, many have used several SEO tricks to boost their visibility but to no avail, but with Google My Business, you will get to appear in the search result even before the organic results starts to show to potential customers that are searching. So, this is a very good way of boosting SEO. When you create a Google My Business account, you will significantly increase your chances of getting to be on the front page of Google search results.
It Helps You Introduce Yourself To Your Potential Customers:
As soon as you register for GMB, you have been granted permission to share all your business information with potential customers. It goes as far as allowing you to share additional information like press releases, product updates, announcements, and a lot more. All of these will always show up through search and also Google Maps. This gives you access to be a step closer to your potential customers, hereby positioning your business as the top of mind for your audience.
As with all marketing strategy and effort, you must have a goal in mind, what do you want to achieve with this free asset provided for your business by Google? Do you want to drive traffic to your website, store visit, get people to register for your upcoming event, or make book sales? With the answer to your goal in mind, it will help you to tailor your content on GMB accordingly. Whenever you make a post, always ensure that there is a call to action button sitting right next to your post, this will signal to your potential customers that there is something they must do before they go.
It Allows For Reviews:
One of the most influential factors, when customers are about to make any purchase with any company, is reviews. Customers prioritize review a lot. The idea behind this is that if customers A and B say this product is good, then it must be good for me too. Be careful though because this might be a double-edged sword. The same way customers can leave positive comments and give you a five-star rating that can increase your sales is the same way they can also leave a bad rating that can plunder your sales. You should be able to manage this well. Take negative comments as honest evaluations that you are glad to receive and that you will work on every suggestion, that way, you will not turn other potential customers off.
A recent online survey says 88% of customers trust reviews they find online and it is not just too different from when they get recommendations from families and friends. Reviews are a great way of building trust with your customers. These reviews also signal something to Google, if you have good reviews, it means your content or product must be really good, Google will rank you higher than a business with bad reviews.
Your Website Traffic And Sales Will Increase:
Even though all businesses have their good time and bad time, Google My Business is another great way to increase traffic to your website and make more sales, you should be exploring all options available to you in any case. Google says when you list with GMB, your website has 70% chances of attracting more local visits to your store or online store from search consumers. This directly means you are 70 times closer to your potential customers once you list on Google My Business. To capitalize on this benefit, it will be counterproductive if GMB is directing traffic to your website and your website responds slowly, so, you might want to check if you will not be having a high bounce rate.
Free Google Advertising:
There are three major ways to appear on Google’s first search result page; rich SEO content, Google Ads, and Google My Business Listing. With SEO, you really must have invested so much in paying SEO experts to optimize your page for the first page and it must have been an effort that you have been making for quite a while. For Google ads, you must have a good budget before you can appear on the first page of search results but for GMB, it offers you a fast lane to appear on the first page without any or low cost. It does not cost you any budget to create your listing, to verify and it cost you less time to optimize your profile.
GMB puts your business in front of many Google Users who might likely be your potential customers and gives them easy accessibility to all your company’s profile at no cost. Therefore, you will need to take advantage of a valuable resource without incurring any additional costs for your business which can allow you to direct your budget to other marketing areas.
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