How to Elevate Your Google My Business Page
An important initial step with local SEO strategy would be to verify and claim your local business’ Google My Business (GMB) listing. Placing yourself on Google My Business could grow the possibility of being viewed on Google’s Local Pack, Google Maps, Local Finder and organic ranking in general. This is a free listing on Google that can be claimed to qualify local businesses. You can receive information regarding your company such as phone number, address, business hours and types of payments accepted.
Any company should take advantage of the enhancements for Google My Business listings – it can help focus viewers’ attention to your page. Even better, recently Google has added additional features to the option and all of this can increase how you rank in local search results. Yes, please! If you haven’t claimed and verified your Google My Business Listing yet, that’s the first step. To get started, visit https://www.google.com/business.
You should absolutely take the initiative to show you’re open for business. Have your listing appear when people are searching for your business.
Don’t just claim your GMB listing and forget about it. There are a variety of other features Google provides that can help to optimize your GMB listing and many other reasons you should frequently monitor your business listing to ensure that its accuracy stays intact.
Provide information Google is requesting
To complete your GMB profile, Google needs you to answer several questions about the business. When completed, your listing will contain valuable data making it easier for potential customers to find more information on your company. You want to fill out this information before someone else does – like your competitors!! This is just one reason why it’s very important that you log in to your Google My Business dashboard regularly to ensure that no one has made any unwanted changes to your listing.
If you see “Google Updates,” this will mean that Google made changes to your business listing because their algorithm found new information on our business or they found a change on your Google Map. A Google user could have also submitted an edit to published information – those “suggested edits” are actually NOT suggestions – you often will not get a notification about them or an opportunity to dispute the changes. Thus, why checking your information on a regular basis is a must.
It is important to realize that Google encourages people who are familiar with your business to answer questions so that Google can learn more information about your company. They actually promote it in your listing as outlined below:
Google My Business Posts
Google Posts are small ads or like social media posts displayed in Google search in your Google My Business listing (in the Knowledge Panel and on Google Maps).
To get initiated with Posts, log into your GMB dashboard to see the Posts option on the left-hand side.
You should show off the life of our business with Google My Business Posts by adding a photo, a call-to-action (CTA) or a link to another page. Remember, the entire point to updating your GMB info is to aid potential customers in finding out the information they need to use your products or services. It’s a win-win if you use the tools provided advantageously.