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As part of launching your business – you should definitely include creating a profile on Google My Business.

What is Google My Business?

Let’s Google, Google My Business.

“Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organisations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. To help customers find your business, and to tell them your story, you can verify your business and edit your business information”

There you go. Google My Business can help you be found in Search, found in Google Maps, and promote your business all at the same time.

Google My Business Profile for Oh Donuts & Coffee - Without even clicking on the website, you can find out what services a business offers, where they’re located, be able to phone them, and check them out by reading reviews!You can even get directions straight to the shop.GMB removes all barriers by making your business clickable, findable, and more visible.

GMB profile for Oh Donuts & Coffee

Without even clicking on the website, you can find out what services a business offers, where they’re located, be able to phone them, and check them out by reading reviews!

You can even get directions straight to the shop.

GMB removes all barriers by making your business clickable, findable, and more visible.

I feel like Google My Business is the biggest and most overlooked channel for promoting your business. 

There are many ways you can use Google My Business to promote your company. Let’s unpick why.

What are the Benefits of Using Google My Business?

GMB.png

How Can You Make the Most of Google My Business?

Now you know why Google My Business can be super helpful, let’s help you get the most out of it.

Here are 8 ways you can make the most of Google My Business.

  1. Create a ‘full’  Google My Business Profile
  2. Share news about your products offers or events
  3. Showcase your services
  4. Share photos
  5. Promote Your Blog Posts, Company News or Case Studies
  6. Post Offers
  7. Ask for reviews
  8. Respond to reviews

1. Create a Google My Business Profile

Customers searching for goods and services on Google Search or Google Maps are more likely to be attracted to your business if there is a great profile.

This profile should be full of lots of content. Customer reviews and up-to-date photos. It should also include lots of ways for customers to interact with you. 

Fill in as much information as you can in your profile because it will help with your ranking if you are specific and are using keywords that customers are searching for. 

Local results favor the most relevant results for each search, and businesses with complete and accurate information are easier to match with the right searches.” Google

Adding your business information will help complement your website and hopefully drive more traffic to it. 

Think of your GMB profile as the window on your business and window dressing for your website.

With a little window-dressing, you can entice more customers in!

If you don’t have a physical location or work from home, then you don’t have to include an address entry to use Google My Business either. Google will verify that you are you say you are by sending you a letter with a verification code on it.

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Pro Tip: You cannot add your social media links directly to your Google My Business profile, instead Google looks in the background to find your social profile information. You can help this process by ensuring your name is the same across your social profiles and your Google My Business profile.

2. Share news about your products, offers or events

Google offers 4 types of posts.

Offers, updates, events, and products.

This is a great feature for notifying local customers what’s new, all from within search.

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You can add some photos or a video and some text as well as a Call to Action button.

Book, Order online, Buy, Learn more, Sign up or Call now.

You can’t schedule these, unfortunately, but they are very quick to do.

So definitely add Google My Business into your content publishing schedule.

3. Showcase your services

Benefits of using Google My Business to promote the services of your small business and be found in search

As a customer, my number 1 stumbling blog is price. Not how much it is – just the fact I can’t see it. 

If I’m wowed by what you offer, I’m not going to be put off by the price, but I’m usually annoyed by the fact I can’t see it on your website or it’s not made very clear. 

Even if you have custom pricing, at least give me a ballpark. If a website is transparent about its pricing, I’m much more likely to gravitate to it. 

That’s where Google My Business comes in handy. It acts as a massive free billboard for your offers and you can showcase the cost of your services.

In your Services menu, just click on add a custom service and add in some detail and costs. 

Add free, fixed, or from – in your pricing details.

Google My business Services.png

Pro Tip: Make sure your pricing and services align with what you have on other channels. You don’t want to cause confusion!

4. Share Photos

Nothing convinces me more than seeing lots of high-quality images of products, behind-the-scenes, people, and places. 

With most smartphones able to capture mega-sized images, there is no excuse for not being able to take good quality photos. 

Even if they come out too dark or too light, there are lots of photo editing apps you can use for free on your phone like Snapseed. Or why not try Canva Pro free for 30 days to resize your images, add your logo, text and any effects.

Pro Tip: The dimensions for Google My Business photos are 720px wide by 720px height. 

5. Promote Your Blog Posts, Company News or Case Studies

Why not share snippets of your blog, your company news, or case studies using the “Create Post” section on your Google My Business dashboard?

You could write teaser text to get people to read your full post and direct them to your website.

GMB Psots.png

6. Post Offers

Got a new offer?

Why not let Google know about it.

Create custom graphics, correctly sized for GMB and post them to your profile.

7. Ask for customer reviews

You can easily share your Google profile link with customers and ask them to leave you a 5 star review on your profile.

Example of Google Reviews on Google My Business

To do this just go to your dashboard and “Get More Reviews.”

Then, click on “Share review form.”

REquest Reviews.png

Google allows you to share the link directly via Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter or email. When the customer clicks on the link, they are presented with your profile, map view and a pop up to complete their review.

8. Respond to reviews

Make sure you spend some time responding to your reviews – in a timely manner. You can set up notifications as well so you can be alerted when someone has posted a review.

Just go to your Google My Business settings in the left-hand side menu. and tick the “Customer reviews” box.

Show your customers that you value their business and hope they return.

Maybe ask them to recommend your business to their others too!

Responding regularly to reviews may also improve your visibility in search according to Google!!!

High-quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility and increase the likelihood that a shopper will visit your location.

Google

but don’t forget to respond to negative reviews too. “Statistics show that of the customers who received a response from a company after posting a negative comment, 33% turned around and posted a positive review, while 34% deleted the original negative review.” (Chatmeter)

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If you don’t have time, why not add an employee as a manager of your profile so they can keep an eye on reviews coming in.

Pro Tip. If you get negative Google reviews, just respond to them in as diplomatic a way as possible and follow Google’s advice. You can only flag reviews that violate Google policies, so anything that is offensive, off-topic, or fake would qualify.

Conclusion

I hope that’s given you a good overview of how to get started and use Google My Business.

Just remember to keep it updated with content, offers, services and responding to all those 5* reviews.