Why Google My Business is more important than ever.
Looking to make a great first impression with potential customers? Then make sure your business is set up on Google My Business listings.
Nearly 84% of online searches are discovery, meaning they’re not typing in your business website directly. Having your business set up on Google My Business helps you get noticed. Think of it as a virtual phone book that allows you to share business information easily and reach potential customers that may not find you otherwise.
In general, Google My Business has become an essential part of your online presence, especially since the events of 2020. Customers are 70% more likely to visit your business and 50% more likely to consider doing business with you if you have a business profile.
What are the benefits of Google My Business?
No matter whether you have a physical store or sell a service, there are many benefits to Google My Business that will allow customers to more easily find your business.
Here are just a few.
- A completed Google My Business listing can significantly improve local SEO ranking. Google algorithms favor businesses that utilize more of their tools, and this is no exception. When someone performs a search, if your Google My Business profile is set up you are more likely to show up in the top results, as well as searches performed in Google Maps.
- A Google My Business profile makes a great first impression and helps you stand out from the competition. Having your business profile with essential information conveniently listed on the right-hand side of the interface not only makes it extremely convenient for potential customers to learn about and interact with your business, it also helps you stand out from your competition that may not have a profile and build trust with your audience. In fact, businesses that show up on Google are almost 3 times more likely to be considered reputable by consumers.
- Google My Business helps you gain helpful insights to make more informed decisions. Gain access to additional insights that help you understand your customers even more, such as views, customer actions, search patterns and reviews.
- You get to be in control of the information Google displays about your business. Having a Google My Business profile allows you to fill out every detail about your business that you want customers to know: location, hours of operation, website, reviews.
- Customer reviews are highly visible, helping build social credibility and helps you easily monitor and respond to reviews. Third-party sites such as Yelp have seen a dramatic reduction in usage and more people are turning to Google Reviews. Having a business profile set up allows potential customers to easily see your ratings and reviews, and gives you a constant pulse on what is being said about your business.
How to Set Up a Google My Business Profile.
There are a lot of online resources that walk you through the process of setting up your Google My Business profile. We’ve included a tutorial video below directly from the source: Google.
While the process is simple, it’s still a very manual process that can be tedious and time consuming especially if you have multiple locations. Verifying your actual business can take weeks. And once you’ve created the profile, you need to upload all of your company information: hours of operation, company overview, pictures, etc.
A client came to us a bit overwhelmed with doing this process for 1600+ Bitcoin ATMs they had located across the country. We provided direct access to Google My Business as part of a 4-tired solution, and were able to submit and authenticate their information and have them up and running within 48 hours for each ATM location.
Whether you decide you need help getting started or feel like you can do it on your own, this is a small but significant thing you can do to improve your SEO and credibility. So don’t wait another day!
