Digital Marketing

How to Optimise Google Business Profile: Updated Nov. 2023

Google is continually changing to keep pace with the demands of its customers to remain on the cutting side and one way in which refines its interface is Google My Business. Google My Business is a free resource designed to help businesses monitor their presence online through the Google website. A Google My Business account can be viewed as a mixture of a catalog in an internet directory and a profile on social media. As in an web directory, company owners build and demand ownership of their Google My Business listings and load it up in essential details such as hours, locations, and photographs.

Mentioned below are some of the important feature of Google My Business page:

1. Q&As:

This feature from Google allows consumers to pose a query directly through the company page. These questions can range from specific queries to nonsensical one-word comments or obvious questions about the operational duration of the store. In the Q&A segment, these questions will be up-voted and will factor into how high they will rate.

2. Descriptions:

Business owners can now have a description of their company in 750 characters. You don’t have to provide a lengthy overview because it might get truncated, so make sure that you include at least a short paragraph detailing the company and what you are offering.

3. Appointment Booking:

It will also directly lead users to a landing page or location to schedule an appointment.

4. Google Posts:

The “Google Posts” feature helps you to inform consumers about business activities, product launches, or other announcements by up to 300 words per post.

5. My Business Insights:

There’s an analytics feature called My Business Insights that tells you how many people saw your profile, how they got there, and what actions they took after analyzing your content.

Now that we know about the key features of Google My Business, let us proceed on how it is created. The team of 7 Seas Solution is there to guide you in creating a Google My Business profile.

 

How to set up My Google Business

Here is a simple step-by-step guide on how you can set up a Google My Business profile:

  • Sign up for Google My Business and click on either a personal or business column to create an account.
  • Avoid creating a duplicate listing if your Google My Business page already exists. Try to give some unique names to your business.
  • Select whether your business has some physical location or not. You can also set address or service areas.
  • Add contact information for your business and verify your business by connecting it to your email address.
  • Create your post and add your products/ services.
  • It is also significant to set google my business on your phone to access customer chat.
  • Never ignore reviews and feedback and do respond to their queries.
  • Last but not least, connect your account with SEO for top rankings which will draw more readers to your site.

 

Get more customers by sharing business information on Google | Google My Business.

 

1. Updating Complete Information:

Google has a number of questions that you want to fill out to complete your Google My Business (GMB) profile. When completed, your listing will have useful simple details to help potential customers find more detail about your company. And if you don’t fill this information out, someone else could. Most business owners may not know that anybody will make a modification (or “edit”) to your company page – even your rivals.  These are not all “suggested” edits – these user-generated improvements will potentially be made live on the page without even notifying you. That’s just one reason why it’s very important to sign in frequently to your Google My Business portal and make sure no one has made any unnecessary improvements and your page. Only note, keep reviewing your listing periodically to be on the safe side after you get your Google My Business listing verified. Once you have a verified and optimized Google Business profile, it’s now time to refine your listing.

 

2. Creating Google My Business Posts:

The “Google Posts” feature helps you to inform consumers about business activities, product launches or other announcements by up to 300 words per post. By including a picture, a call-to-action (CTA), and even providing a link to another page, you can have a Google My Business website.  with your Google My Business Pages. Google My Business posts show prominently in the Knowledge Panel of your company, so don’t skip this chance to stand out. To catch the eye of a searcher, you want to add a picture in your letter, but the Post picture can be cut off on Google Maps. You may need to check a few post picture sizes to make sure it is suitably sized on desktop and mobile devices for Maps and the Knowledge Panel.

 

3. Regularly Posting Q&As on Google My Business Profile:

Q&A features from Google allow consumers to pose a query directly through the company page. These questions can range from specific queries to one-word comments which don’t make sense or obvious questions about working duration of the store. In the Q&A segment, these questions will be up-voted and will factor into how high they will rate. The feature of Google My Business Questions & Answers is the ideal opportunity to hear from the users directly, so you can answer them. One thing you should do is be diligent and build a list of Frequently Asked Questions to preempt GMB Q&As from users. Check with your sales reps and customer support team to find the most often requested questions, and add those questions into your GMB page. Google has said it will make issues more accessible by upvoting them. If anyone has an issue that is especially important, go ahead and upvote.

 

4. Encouraging Customers to Provide Google Reviews:

Proactively seeking or obtaining feedback from users — on Google or at some other rating site — has become a go-to marketing tactic for major brands and businesses. Asking users for Google reviews often helps to yield results with a higher 5-star ratings percentage; these are expected to stay stable over time. At the other hand, unprompted reviews report a greater share of the 1-star ratings; over time , the average rating continues to decline. Of course, not all of the “asks”-generated feedback would be positive. Yet this is not a bad thing, actually. Negative feedback can build organized market growth incentives, and constructive feedback will provide you with clearer direction.

Rank High in Results and Increase Engagements

Local SEO strategies can be used to claim and verify your Google My Business listing. Google My Business benefits are immense – it can increase your chances of showing in Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, etc. This free listing service can be used by organizations to include information about their company, like their address, phone number, and working . The recently added features of Google My Business listing can be used by companies to get viewers’ attention and draw more audience. This will directly enhance the company’s rank in local search results. What most businesses don’t realize is that there are a variety of other features Google gives you that you can use to optimize your GMB listing and there are several reasons as to why you should frequently check your business listing to ensure accuracy.

Fill out every information:

There are a variety of questions Google wants you to fill out to complete GMB profile.  When done, your listing will have valuable basic data that will make it easier for potential customers to find more information about your will in turn help in improving your ranking.

 

Google My Business Posts:

Google posts are like “mini’-ads’ or “social media posts’ that show up in Google search in your GMB listing. You can get started with posts.  For example, if you are having an event, you can set up an event post with a date along with a registration link.

 

The Feature of Booking button:

Google’s Booking button feature can really help your business stand out from the crowd. If your business belongs to that group where customers need to make appointments and for that you are using an integrated software, make use of Google My Business listing feature. With that, people can book an appointment with your business directly from your GMB listing.

Google is continually changing to keep pace with the demands of its customers to remain on the cutting side, and one way in which refines its interface is Google My Business. We, at The Mitraya Solutions strive to give you the best optimized Google My Business profile, so that there stands nothing in your company’s way of success.

FAQs

Yes, any answer posted in the Google My Business Questions and Answers (Q&A) section by the users can be edited. However, it will always show “edited” to all those who view the answer. So, it is better to take time and frame the answers carefully so that you don’t need to edit them later. Having said that, it is also essential to provide correct information and so, if needed, editing is recommended.

Yes, you will receive notifications of new Google My Business questions on your mobile device as well as in your email inbox attached to your GMB dashboard. You can choose the type of notifications you wish to receive and turn-off the notifications as well. Google My Business provides you with a number of tools to use and one such is the Google My Business Question and Answer tool.

Yes, anyone can update your business information on Google My Business listing or  make changes to your business profile. You can add members to your Google My Business listing and allow them to make the necessary changes from time to time, while still being the owner of the page. The users can be of 3 types – Owners, Manager, and Site Manager.

 

A fake review on Google My Business profile can blemish your online reputation and drive your potential customers away, and so, try to remove such reviews. It could be posted by a spammer or a direct competitor. Some steps that you can take – respond to the review, flag the review by notifying the Google team, report the review to Google Business Support team, or make a claim stating why the review is fake.

 

Yes, certainly, Google My Business posts help in SEO. It is a great way to boost your SEO strategy as it can help in generating more organic traffic to your website. The more people visit your GMB profile, the better it is for your business and the high click-through rate from your Google My Business to your website is considered a positive sign.

 

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