GMB: Your Most Important Citation for Search Engine Optimization
Are you a new business owner that is looking to start developing your online presence to make it easier for customers to find you? This article will help you understand the importance of Google my business and how it can benefit your business. This will also be a step-by-step guide to help you launch your Google my business profile and set it up correctly to maximize its effectiveness.
So let’s get started!
Why is Google My Business Important?
Some business owners argue that having a Google my business page isn’t as important as everyone makes it out to be. So let us clarify the confusion and show you how it can benefit your business to see if you find it worth setting up.
The first thing is that Google My Business makes it easy for people to find your business. Whenever a customer searches for your brand name, you want that customer to find your business instead of one of your competitors. Just imagine if people were looking for your business and didn’t see your Google My Business page – how many customers would that be costing you?
Google My Business also gives people an easy way for people to call you, see your credibility from reviews and see the hours your business is open. All of these features make it incredibly easy for customers to find the information about your business that they are searching for. Also, since Google My Business is incredibly easy to set up – it makes sense to have it and enjoy all the benefits than not have it set up at all and miss out. So let’s dive into how to set up a Google My Business page if you are in the local services industry.
How To Set Up Google My Business
The first thing you need to do is choose a Gmail account that you would like to grant ownership access to for your Google My Business page. We recommend using your personal Gmail account but if you don’t have one, just create a brand new one. Once you have your Gmail account selected, it’s time to create your business page.
- Go to Google and search “Google My Business”.
- Click the first search result and sign into your Gmail account
- Click Add a new business listing
Once you get to this point you will need to verify that your business exists before you are able to start filling out your business information. This sounds difficult but it is really simple. Google will ask you for your business name and address. Once you provide Google with your business name and address, they will send you a post card with a code to your business address to validate that your business exists. All you need to do is type the code that you receive into your business page and that will verify that your business and address is real. The post card usually takes anywhere from one to three weeks to arrive so be patient!
Adding Business Information
Once you received you Google My Business code and have verified your account – it’s time to start setting up your business information. The first thing you should do is add your phone number and make sure that the address is listed correctly. Once this is complete you can start filling in the rest of the business information that includes:
- Business hours
- Services
- Price ranges
- Industry
- Photos
Adding Business Photos
There are different type of business of photos you can add to your business page. However, there are also some photos that we suggest you not to add to your business page. The best type photos to add is the ones of what your actual business interior and exterior looks like. This make it convenient for customers to be able to recognize your business if they are trying to find you.
We suggest taking pictures of the inside of your office, the outside of your office, pictures of the team, pictures of work in action etc. This will make your business profile look great!
If you are a general contractor and don’t actually have people coming to your office because you provide a service for them at their home then you can also add pictures of past work that you’ve completed, your business logo, pictures of the team at work etc. Now we suggest to avoid adding pictures that are not directly related to your business specifically.
Too many businesses add stock photos to their business page that they’ve purchased from professional photographers. These types of photos may be beneficial for your website, but your Google My Business page should only have photos of your actual business. The reason for this is that Google frowns upon having stock photos on the Google My Business page and also it does not benefit your customers.
Your customers might be looking for something specific like what the front of your office looks like, the interior, past work and stock photos provide none of these benefits.
Google My Business Posts
Google My Business posts are one of Google’s newest features for business pages. This allows business owners to make a post or show a photo directly on their Google listing whenever their brand name is searched. This can be super beneficial if you have any special promotions going on that you want to make customers aware of. If you are a credible company with many people searching for your business online – just imagine being able to show your customers and potential clients a special promotion while they are searching for your business. You can use this feature to share reviews, promotions, any information posts, things that you’ve posted on social media, or whatever you like. Most people find this feature extremely effective.
So this concludes our step-by-step guide on how to set up your Google My Business profile. Our team believes that Google My Business pages are one of the best things a company can use to improve their search presence. We hope you were able to benefit from this and we wish you more success for your business!
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Special thanks to Mathew Moretin of Toronto SEO for contributing this article.
