When you think about your online presence, you probably think about your social media pages and your website. But one often overlooked, incredibly useful, and free tool you should be focusing on is your Google My Business listing.
Having a good Google My Business listing is paramount in showing up in results for voice searches and ranking well in local SEO. Setting up and optimising your Google My Business listing is fairly simple, but the following tips will make it even easier to get started.
How to claim your business listing
If you want to take charge of your Google My Business listing, you’ll either have to ‘add’ or ‘claim’ your business. To start, you’ll want to go to business.google.com/add. You should be able to follow the prompts, enter your information, and submit the form.
It can be a little more complicated if you have multiple locations or if someone else currently owns your business listing, in which case you’ll need to follow the verification process.
Top ways to optimise your Google My Business listing
The most important thing to do when creating or updating your Google My Business listing is ensuring all your details are correct. Be sure to double check your:
- Business name
- Category
- Description
- Attributes (e.g. menu or pricing sheet)
- Address (if you have multiple locations, make sure you include the local address)
- Phone number (if you have a local and national phone number, it’s better to include the local number)
- Website
In addition to confirming all your details are correct, it’s helpful to personalise your listing. Make sure you have a great profile picture and cover photo. You have the option to choose photos that users have tagged of your business, too. You can also add a video to help tell your business’ story.
Other ways you can improve your Google My Business listing
Want to get noticed? Get reviews. Great ways to start getting reviews include:
- Asking happy customers and clients
- Creating marketing campaigns to get customer reviews (e.g. providing a discount if a customer gives you a review in-store)
- Provide great service so you organically start getting reviews
- Once you start getting reviews, be sure to respond to them! For the best results, it’s recommended that businesses respond to all of their reviews, regardless of how good or bad they are.
- Customers like to see that businesses are interactive. And if you get a bad review, a customer is around 45 percent more likely to still shop with you if you respond to the negative review and make it right.
How to keep your Google My Business listing updated
If you’ve set your Google My Business listing up and followed the tips provided, you may still be wondering what to do to keep your listing relevant and ensure your business listing positively represents your company. So, what are the best ways to do this?
- Keep your details updated. If you move, change your phone number, or even change your trading hours, it’s important to make sure this is reflected in your Google My Business listing.
- If you get a bad review, be sure to address it. If it’s spam, you may be able to report the review to Google. If it’s a review by an unhappy customer, it’s a good idea to craft a composed response to the review.
- Consider creating posts through Google My Business. Although it’s a new feature, it may be a good way to make sure customers know what you’re up to!
- Enable the messaging feature on Google My Business to make it even easier for your customers or clients to get in touch.
- If it suits your business, you can turn on the bookings feature to make it quicker for customers to make an appointment.
Want to know more about improving your online presence?
Digital Bridge specialises in web design, web development, website management, and more. If you’re looking to upgrade your website, your socials, or your SEO, you can contact us at hello@digitalbridge.com.au or give us a call at +613 8658 2434.