How To Optimize Your Google My Business Listing For Higher Rankings
Google My Business Manager
If you are looking for ways to get more people in your local business or to your website, a good place to start is with your Google My Business listing (GMB). You can do this yourself or hire a Google my business manager to handle the heavy lifting for you. Either way, there are several ways to optimize your Google my business listing starting today.
Now is a great time to refresh your listing because Google has rolled out quite a few new features to help your business get discovered online.
Once you claim your listing, you’ll want to be as thorough as you can in providing detailed information about your business so that your future customers and clients can find you.
There’s one thing that you may not be aware of, anybody can suggest edits to your Google business listing, so it’s important that you take ownership and check your listings often.It’s also just as important that you don’t take the “set it and forget it approach.”
How Often Should You Your Update Google Business Listing?
Ideally, you should be updating your Google business listing monthly or even when you have new changes such as business hours or holiday hours. It's also a good idea to update your listing to reflect service changes, new products, or even a new blog post.
How To Optimize Google My Business Listing
Your GMB is a great way to increase your local rankings on Google and get extra eyeballs on your business.
[click_to_tweet tweet="How to optimize your Google My Business listing for leads. " quote="Your Google My Business listing is a great way to increase your local rankings on Google and get extra eyeballs on your business."]
How? You ask?Over the last few months, Google has been pretty aggressive in rolling out updates geared towards increasing engagement. Here are some of the biggest changes that Google has rolled out over the last few months to help you optimize your Google My Business Listing.
Google My Busines Posts:
Google is once again trying to find ways to infuse “social”.By using posts you can engage with people who find you on Google in a way that you have not been able to in the past.
“By creating posts, you can place your timely text, video, or photo content in front of customers when they find your business listing on Google." (source: Google)
There are also call to action buttons that you can enable such as "book", "order online", "buy", "learn more", "sign up" and "get offer."You can even get creative by adding emoji’s to your posts.
Your post will stay active for 7 days but old posts can still be seen in your GMB listing as users scroll. However, if your post expires, then none of your older posts will be visible, so it's a good idea to add a new post at least once a month or every 7 days if you can.
Google My Business Video
You can now add videos to your Google my business listings and your posts. Videos can be up to 30 seconds long. Videos are a great way to showcase your business, staff, customer reviews or blog posts. They are also a great vehicle for educating your potential customer.
Google My Business Description
Among the new features, this is a basic necessity. What better way to introduce people to your business than by telling your story. Now you can do that in up to 750 words by adding a description about your business to your listing.
[click_to_tweet tweet="How to optimize your Google My Business listing for leads. " quote="Your Google My Business listing is a great way to increase your local rankings on Google and get extra eyeballs on your business."]
Other New Additions To The Google My Business Listings Include:
Service Fields: Add information about the services you offer.
Menu Items: Great feature for restaurants - add your top menu items or specials to your GMB.
Opening Date: Let people know when you started your business.
Book Button: Allow customers to schedule appointments from your Google listing.
Messaging: Messaging can be set up so potential customers can contact you via messages which are sent directly to your cell phone.
Question and Answer: This button is already set up and allows people to ask you a question.
Email responses:Google now emails customers when you respond to their reviews. Have you responded to your Google reviews lately? If not, now would be a good time to start.
Conclusion:
There are many things you can do to spruce up your GMB listing and increase the chances of getting new leads and increasing your ranking on Google.
It starts with making sure that your GMB listing is optimized and complete. You will also want to add new content at least monthly.
This can be overwhelming when you are also trying to run your business. That's why a lot of companies choose to hire a Google my business manager to do the work for them.
Need someone to optimize your Google business listing? Want a Google My Business Manager? Feel free to contact me today. I can help you with the complete one-time setup and optimization and I can also help you manage your GMB listing on a monthly basis.
