How To Setup and Optimize Your Google My Business Page

How to setup and optimize your google my business page

On average there are 40,000 searches per second and 3.5 billion searches per day on Google.

That’s a lot of searches that people are conducting in order to find what they’re looking for. If your business isn’t properly listed and optimized on Google, you could be missing out.

If you properly optimize your Google My Business page, it can become the difference between a local customer buying from you instead of one of your competitors.

Before you do anything else with your business you’re going to want to set up a Google My Business page. It’s one of the most productive and simplest things you can do for your business to attract local customers.

We’re going to show you how to create and optimize your Google My Business page, but first we must look at the benefits of having a properly optimized page for your business on the world’s largest search engine.

Advantages of a Google My Business Page

With people typing in 1.2 trillion searches per year on Google it shouldn’t be difficult to understand why you would want to have a Google My Business page.

In this article on the top revenue generating tools for your business we identified having a Google My Business page as the #1 tool you can have.

Customers who have the greatest intent to purchase are those who are right in your backyard; local customers. A Google My Business page will direct local customers who search for your product to your business as long as you have optimized it properly.

With a GMB page your business will also be listed with Google Maps, making it extremely easy for people to find you. They’ll also be able to find your address and phone number, which eliminates the need for customers to scour your website just to find out where you’re located.

Perhaps the best benefit of having a GMB page is the fact that it’s free. There’s no cost to creating a page for your business on Google – it’s basically free marketing! People in your area that search for your product already have a reason to buy, and having them able to quickly and effectively find our business’ information is a major benefit.

Creating your Google My Business page

Now that you know how important a GMB page is for your business we’re going to show you how to create one. It’s pretty simple to do and doesn’t take much time to setup.

First, you’ll need to sign into your Google account or create an account if you don’t have one. Once this is done, head on over to www.google.ca/business/.

Once here you’ll need to enter some basic information such as the name of your business, phone number, address, business hours, category and more. The more information you complete in this area the better of you will be and increase the chances of ranking higher.

Additionally, you are going to have to verify your business profile. This can be done as simply as searching for your business to ensure that you are listed as the owner of the business. For more information and a step-by-step video on how to do this, you can visit Google My Business’ page on how to claim a listing.

One thing to remember when selecting your business category is to make it as accurate as possible. For example, if you were an electrician in your city you would select “electrician” as your category as opposed to a broader category like “services” or “trades”. You can select multiple categories for your business but make sure that at least one of them is extremely specific.

This can help your rankings and help those looking for your services find your business easier.

You can also post photos of your business as well as display and respond to customer reviews.

Optimize your Google My Business page

Now that you have your business’ page set up with basic information completed it’s time to optimize. Optimizing your Google My Business page is how people will be directed to your page when they do a search.

Local search results are based on three main factors: relevance, distance and prominence. Each one of these factors play a part in how well your business ranks in Google’s search engine. This is why completing your business’ info as completely and accurately as you can will help with your rankings.

1. Basic Information

We’ve already covered the first step to optimizing your page in filling out all of your business’ basic information on your profile.

2. Reviews

Next, you’ll have to start generating reviews. Reviews on Google are listed on your Google My Business page and can be a major deciding factor in a consumer choosing your business. 68% of people said that positive online reviews boost their trust in a local business and certainly you’re going to want to be one of those business.

The more reviews and especially positive reviews that your business has, the higher your business is going to rank in Google. You can ask your customers to write you a review to help increase the number of reviews your business has. Read our last blog post on how you can generate positive reviews that includes an e-mail template which you can send out to your customers asking them to review you.

3. Keywords, Images and Videos

Using targeted keywords, images and videos on your GMB page is another way to help with the optimization of your page and achieve a higher ranking. In your profile it’s a good idea to use keywords anywhere it is appropriate, such as your business description.

However, make sure you don’t go overboard with keywords as too many can actually hurt your ranking. Including a keyword or two in your description should be enough.

Adding photos and videos to your page can help with your rank as well. Google My Business lets businesses upload up to 10 pictures and five videos to their page. This can be photos of the front of your store, photo of a popular product or video of a store tour. Pictures and videos are a great way to engage with consumers.

4. Updated Business Hours

We have already touched on business hours a little bit, but another way to ensure your page is properly optimized is to keep your business hours updated. Nothing is more irritating to a customer than going to a business who is closed when their Google My Business hours showed they were open.

Having updated hours is especially crucial if your business changes its hours frequently. For example, your business may have different hours in the Summer and Winter.

5. Google Maps

With more mobile searches being conducted than ever before, ensuring that your Google Maps location is correct is another must-have. If a person uses their mobile device to search for your product, your location will be displayed in Google Maps and tell the searcher how close or far they are from your business.

This is why making sure that the information regarding your location is accurate in both your business profile and on Google Maps.

Having a Google My Business for your business is an absolute must if you want to get more quality, local customers. Google is by far and away the world’s leading search engine and not having a GMB page is a certain way for you to fall behind your competitors in rankings.

If you want to have us review your website and give you a free 30 minute consultation where we show you how to generate more local customers from your website, click here.