When we set goals and aspirations for ourselves in business, we believe that thinking big means jumping the puddle and reaching the ears of people who are miles away. We recommend that you first step on the ground and once there you are encouraged to improve your Local SEO. Thinking big in this case is to strengthen your closest market, consolidate the clientele that finds you and reaches you easily. Thanks to Google My Business, you can be where those people looking for businesses like yours have a presence. In this way, you can compete against large companies.
We assure you that investing efforts in this tool is worth it. Do you want to check it out?
Table of Contents
What is Google My Business
Google My Business is one of the platforms that Google makes available for businesses with an Internet presence. In this case, it is made available to local businesses that want to improve their Local SEO. Thus, Google My Business arises from the need to combine functionalities that previously had to be carried out in Google+ and in Google Places separately.
Google My Business allows you, for free, to be present in searches that are carried out both in the Google search engine and in Maps. In this way, you will be able to manage the direct relationship with your customers, with the publication of promotions, events and news on Google+. One of the most important and attractive options is reviews. Thanks to these you can find out what Internet users think and respond to all of them.
In addition, you will be able to extract statistics and focus strategies thanks to the analytics that it puts at your disposal. Visually you can add photographs so that the client can see the business in advance. One of the latest novelties also allows virtual tourist tours for the client to see in great detail.
All this will be much easier with the mobile application that is already available on Android and iOS.
Google My Business Tutorial
The first thing to sign up for Google My Business will be to create a Gmail account if you don’t have one yet.
Once you access the official site google my business you must click on the button on the right where it says start now.
There you must insert the name of your company and click next, where you will have to fill in the location data of the same.
There is the option of delivering products and services to your customers, which you must select if this is your case. Thus, a map will immediately appear where you can insert the exact location of your business.
They will then ask us questions about our delivery area that you can answer as appropriate. It would help if you were informed about what your company does thanks to the predetermined categories.
In the section on establishing connections, although it is optional, we recommend adding the telephone and the web, if you have one.
Verification In Google My Business
A very important issue is the verification part. Google must go through different filters the information you have just given to verify that your business actually exists and has a physical space. Once it is verified, they will send you the same through an email that can take between two and three weeks. As you can see, you must accept the sending of the card that confirms your account.
Once we have it, we have to start discovering the functionalities and include all the information about our business. The first thing you will see on the screen is the option to complete schedules; there you can configure the days of the week and the hours your company opens. You can also add a profile photo. In addition to this option, you will see the possibility of including several photos of the business, products or services and even videos (as it is inside as it is outside who works there).
In the website option, we recommend that even if you don’t have one, you create a site with Google My Business.
Free Website
It is one of the functionalities that Google My Business launched as a novelty in its day. When inserting the web page, the platform offers the option of creating a new site at the moment. Keep in mind that if you have one, the positioning possibilities increase. The functionality is completely free and can be done from your mobile or computer.
It should be noted that the website is very basic, as you will see below, so if you are looking for a fully personalized website, we recommend that you investigate other options. However, it is a very good option to start with. Inside the start menu, you will see a “Website” tab.
The first thing you should choose is the Theme, as you will see they are very generic colours and fonts, adaptable to any theme. Later you can add images and texts. With these steps carried out, you will be able to publish. The next and very important step will be to create the domain of your site.
Google should improve many of the functionalities that this website does not offer, since it does not have, for example, the option of the blog or social networks. We recommend that each business has its own website and domain. But this is an option to consider for beginners to be able to create a web page easily.
Google My Business And Google Adwords
Among the campaigns you already have with Google Adwords, it would be interesting to allocate a space to advertise on Google My Business. So you can add a location extension that will take the user directly to Google Maps. They will also be able to connect with the business telephone number and the link to the website. You can reach customers that are within a specific radius, so local marketing is very specific. With these two tools, you will be able to carry out much more effective strategies.
Google My Business and Google Analytics
As we mentioned, one of the advantages of Google My Business is to have instant analytics as a reflection of the activity. By being connected to Google Analytics, you will be able to see the behaviour of your customers at all times and take better advantage of the platform.
Google My Business Insights
Google My Business has statistics within the application with which to monitor different behaviours: such as visibility, audience, or publications. Invisibility, you can access data as specific as the summary of phone calls. In publications, both the comments and the times shared, and the posts that have worked best will be shown. Within audiences, it tracks your new users, where they come from, and all the demographics.
It is a simple way to keep track of the engagement your business is having in Google My Business, and in this way, incorporate changes.
Business View, Take The Opportunity.
This service is one of the most recent that Google offers and that is not yet being exploited. It is about taking a 360º virtual tour of your business. More and more new technologies allow us to carry out tasks that improve the perception of us and our business. We encourage you to explore this option and gain a competitive advantage.
Why Improve Local SEO
If your business is locally oriented, Google My Business is your positioning platform. As we have seen, being the first in searches is decisive for the operation of our company. Google My Business improves your local SEO because the client can see our exact location and have at their disposal quickly the schedule, telephone number or the flow of people according to the days. Among other functions such as showing yourself with transparency, thanks to adding photos. Show the opinions of your clients, thus reinforcing the brand image with opinions about your service and facilities.
Spending time on Local SEO means reaching more customers. As we will see, thanks to the location of mobile phones, Google manages to know where searches are carried out to position according to which businesses. So if yours is well-positioned in Google My Business, it will have more sales opportunities.
The Geolocation Of Google My Business
With the geolocation of Google, Local SEO is increasingly emerging. Controlling the IP from where searches are carried out and continuously monitoring the user thanks to the GPS of the mobile, are tools that Google makes available to businesses.
Google increasingly tries to integrate usability more to understand the user in their search better. Multiple factors determine the type of search. It is not the same to carry out a specific search in a specific place and from that place than to do it from a completely different place. Both are very precise searches that Google easily detects.
But what happens when a person conducts a search without determining the location? This is where the GPS data that Google has collected from the user’s device or IP becomes decisive.
What follows is that positioning by means of a keyword of our business will not always guarantee us to appear in the Google search, since a person can search for a term not because they want to hire that service, but because they want to know what it is, etc.
In this way, having Google My Business can give us an advantage since it positions us in a very specific way.
To position you must take into account each of the details that are made available to you, they are very simple details that you can improve day by day, in addition to getting do follow links, evaluations in other portals, making efforts in the guest blogging.
The Importance Of Reviews In Local SEO
A determining factor and in which you have to invest time is in the reviews.
One of the variables that Google takes into account to position itself against other businesses is reviews. That is the opinion that users leave about your business. We know that today’s customer looks for references on the Internet before consuming, so giving importance to this category is mandatory if you have carried out an Internet search for a service, which one would you prefer: a business that has a favourable comment or one that has 10.
Google levels this satisfaction with a very visual scale: thanks to the stars. Thus, one star will be a very bad value, while five stars will be very good.
Reviews also influence our brand image or branding, where values such as trust and the veracity of our speech are exposed.
HOW To Get Reviews Or Reviews From Google
You can wait for customers to put reviews or you can also encourage them to do so: in person at the time of consumption; ask your work team to write; Include the links in company communications such as newsletters or social media posts.
Other Factors To Consider
You must bear in mind that Google My Business was born as a fusion of Google+ so Google will take into account the authority in this social network and will favour activity entered with the publication, interaction.
One point in which we recommend investing time is in the images. Do not forget to add a good description to the photographs, give it a name that contains your keyword and of course, add your location. Do not stay only with the profile and cover photo; you can include photographs of the facilities, your workers, etc.
Google My Business also values the traffic to your website so you should make an effort to give it the maximum diffusion and position it properly.
We also recommend that you include your business within two or three categories to make the search easier for users.
Posts Also Improve Local SEO
Visually, what Google My Business does is create a file for your business. In it, in addition to data, location or reviews, we can post publications.
Why Are Local SEO Posts Important? Because these sales, discount, registration or event posts create free calls to action in Google search.
When establishing a content strategy in Google My Business, you must take into account these expire after 7 days, except for the events that do so when it ends.
Visually the publications appear as a carousel, so we can see several publications sliding one after another.
Publishing is very simple, but if you want to optimize them, you must pay attention to parameters such as the size of the image, the suitability of the Landing Page or the text.
Changes To Google My Business
As already announced, the mobile application for iOS and Android has finally arrived. So from the phone, we can see all the information related to customers, reviews or messages.
With the recent release of the follow button, companies can clearly see who their customers are and also their potential customers. This allows for much more comprehensive monitoring.
Furthermore, the application integrates all the functionalities that were previously carried out from the computer. The use of Google My Business aims to reach the level of a social networks, since more and more businesses use it as a window to show their daily activity. It is a very specific platform since users use it for a specific action: to know what your business offers and if it is worth it. Therefore, the publications have a clear focus and could represent a better investment of the publication time than doing it on other social networks whose focus is more generic.
Likewise, the importance that Google attaches to the Mobile First concept is clearly seen. The application in both systems guarantees that the app will be subject to new updates that will incorporate functionalities adapted to AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) technology.
Also Read : How To Register A Website In Google Analytics?
