Use the Google | Google My Business
We traditionally know Google to be the king of the search engines. It knows all things, sees all things and delivers all answers at the swipe of a keystroke. The company essentially positioned itself as a verb in our everyday vocabulary. “Did you Google it?”
As a marketing agency, you may be thinking we’re here to talk about how you can utilize Google Ads in your marketing. That’s for another day. Literally. We are creating a Google deep dive blog series to share with you a few of the FREEBIE Google tools available that can elevate your brand, make your day easier and help you keep tabs on your website performance.
Let’s first start with Google My Business.
What is Google My Business?
When you open your google search engine and type in the name of your brand, Google will populate its search results. Additionally, Google will share the listing it has created for you, generally populating with an address, website URL (if there is one), map, phone number and a few photos it may have aggregated from your website or other SEO rich photos. While this is really great of Google to do this for you, there are a few components to Google My Business (GMB) that you need to know about: business profile, websites, posts and insights.
Your Business Profile is a great place to start. You can claim your listing and start to use this as your “storefront.” Upon verification that you are who you say you are, you are able to expand upon and edit the general information that has populated through Google’s algorithm.
Start by sharing a description of your business, hours of operation, services offered and engage with recommendations and reviews. Expanding briefly into the services option, this feature allows you to not only list products and services and also include a description of each product or service and your price points.
Another convenient feature is the messaging capabilities. Visitors can message you directly from the GMB listing; you are able to maintain a conversation within the platform. The message option can be turned off and back on at any time. Your business profile allows you to engage with your audience, provide SEO-rich content and see basic insights or listing metrics right from your tablet, computer or phone.
I mentioned above that Google My Business can be your digital storefront. Let's highlight briefly their website capabilities. While we would love to help build a beautiful new website for you, we understand not all businesses have the budget for a custom-built site. Google has a great free option within the GMB suite.
Your website will be built from the information provided within your business profile - which is why it is important to be as detailed and thorough as possible with the profile listing. You are able to choose from any mobile-ready, responsive templates to design your layout and you will have a custom domain specific to your brand. Your website will update automatically as you update your business profile - super convenient!
Creating custom posts and regular offers will keep your followers engaged as you are able to constantly add new information about products, services, menus, etc.
How do you know if your efforts are reaching your audience?
Ahhh the million dollar question. Insights! The insights options allow you to keep track of your customers, how they found you and how they are engaging with you - clicks, calls, profile views - which posts are performing better than others, and where exactly are your users from.
Why should you take the time to update your profile... outside of keeping your information accurate? It’s Google. They wrote the book on search engine optimization. Building your Google Profile and filling it with current, relevant content will help you to move up the ranks in search results. Search engine spiders will crawl through your content and find those relevant keywords and start delivering your amped-up profile to new audiences.
If you would like some help managing updates, making sure your content is attracting the right audience and you are making the most of the Google My Business suite, let us know! SEO, content creation and elevating brands is the name of our game.
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