Google My Business listing plays a very crucial role for local businesses. If you want your business to pop up when people search for your services nearby you or in your areas, then you must have a well-optimized GMB listing.
You can optimize your Google My Business listing by following these steps:
- Create, Claim & Verify Your Google My Business Listing
- Add Correct Basic Business information (Service Areas, Business Address, Phone Number, Website, Appointment Link, Business Hours, Short Name)
- Optimize Your Business Description
- Choose a Specific Business Category
- Add Quality Logo, Images & Virtual Tour
- Add Products, Services, or Menu
- Monitoring, Encouraging, and Responding to Reviews
- Use Google Posts Regularly
- Enable Google Assistant and/or direct messaging.
1. Create, Claim & Verify Your Google My Business Listing
The first step toward GMB optimization is having a verified GMB profile. If you want to optimize another person’s business, then you must ask for access to their account.
Want to create a new listing? Visit-https://google.com/business/ and follow the step-by-step procedure.
2. Add Correct Basic Business Information
Add accurate business information so that you don’t miss out on any valuable leads or customers. Plus, by doing so, users will be more likely to trust you.
Here are some fields you need to fill out correctly:
- Listing name: It will be your business name or brand name.
- Address: It’s your local business’s physical address. If you have business at multiple locations, then you have to create new listings for all the locations.
- Phone number: Provide a valid phone number.
- Service area: Add the areas where you offer services. This can be a region, a city, a state, or even a country.
- Business hours: Provide your available hours, so people know when to contact you.
- Website: If your business has a website, then you should add it to provide a better user experience.
- Appointment link: Provide users with a direct contact link to schedule an appointment with you.
3. Optimize Your Business Description
Optimizing your business description will not only help you rank higher for the keywords but also help users understand your business better.
You can introduce your business briefly in this section of the GMB profile. You are limited to 750 characters for the business description.
Create an intriguing description that includes seed keywords and nicely describes what makes you stand out.
4. Choose a Specific Business Category
For a business, a category is extremely important. Why is this? This is primarily because most searches are conducted based on categories, services, and products, and very few searches are performed directly upon entering a business name or address.
Additionally, Google offers more features based on business categories. Adding the right categories to your business profile will enhance the listing with more attributes that will help you rank higher for local searches.
5. Add Quality Logo, Images & Virtual Tour
For a Google Business Listing, photos are the most frequently viewed items. Images of high quality attract more views, boost profile visibility, and generate more business leads.
An effective logo leaves a lasting impression on the user. Many returning customers recognize the company by its logo.
Virtual tours allow users to explore your workplace from their computer without physically visiting it. This is a great way to expose users to your business architecture and environment. Many people are drawn to physical locations and virtual tours as ways of fulfilling their desire to visit.
6. Add Products, Services, or Menu
Using this option, users can learn about the products, services, and menus that your business offers.
It also allows you to enhance your business profile with more relevant content, which may help you rank higher in local searches for product/service search terms.
It would be beneficial to include most of the information about the products & services like business name, brand, price, brief description, etc.
7. Monitoring, Encouraging and Responding to Reviews
A Google my business profile, with a lot of positive reviews, will generate more trust. Reviewers are usually interested in knowing the opinions of the people who have used your product or service.
Reviews help users decide whether they want to be your customer. So monitoring your reviews and responding to them is essential for a business.
Reviews can be both negative and positive, so respond wisely to maintain your brand’s reputation.
The more positive reviews your business receives, the more trustworthy your business becomes for users. So always encourage your customers to post a review of your products/services.
8. Use Google Posts Regularly
The Google My Business post allows you to share updates, offers, announcements, events, products, and more, similar to social media.
Posts that you have updated are displayed below your business profile, according to the search query.
A regular posting schedule will improve your business’s visibility and position on search engines.
Users can even follow your business profile to get notifications when you post new content.
To encourage customers to take action, include links to your post and CTAs.
9. Enable Messaging
You can use this feature to allow your customers to contact you directly via message. Your customers can send you a message straight from your Google My Business page.
Also, it doesn’t use your personal phone number, as google provides different phone numbers via Google Allo App.
It would be beneficial to enable this option for easy communication with your users to convert them.
Take Away Thoughts
The above GMB optimization lets you stand out from the competition, as well as improves your Google local listing ranking.
If it seems difficult to you, I, a Remote SEO Expert, will be happy to do this job for you. Get in touch!
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