Today, before you visit a store or contact the office of the company, the vast majority of buyers study information on the Internet. Contact details, addresses, routes reviews, photos – all these interests consumers before buying or contacting.
In this article, you will learn how to make your business “more visible” in local search using Google My Business.
Google My Business (GMB) is a free service for managing company data on maps, searches, and other Google channels. For companies with physical locations, creating and optimizing GMB cards is an essential part of local SEO.
You can register your profile yourself by following Google’s instructions.
1. When adding information about your company for the first time, correctly fill in all the necessary data about it. Later they can be edited in your account. If such a company is already registered (for example, you are working with a branch), select an existing one from the drop-down list, and request the right.
2. Indicate where your company is located. Perhaps, filling in the address may cause some difficulties if, say, you work from home, have several points or your “office” is mobile. In this case, to the Google question “Your company serves customers at other addresses,” answer “yes” and indicate the territory of service.
There are also a few recommendations on this subject:
- if you are a freelancer and/or accept clients at home, indicate your home address;
- if you have several offices where clients can come, create a separate GMB profile for each OR indicate the address of the one closest to the main field of activity;
- pizzerias with delivery may not indicate the exact location, but the area where they operate, designating themselves as “Service-area business” (services in the designated area).
3. Choose your business category.
4. Add your phone number, website, other attributes.
5. Before the cards become available to users, the data must pass the verification procedure. Normally, Google sends an email to a physical address for verification. If your company has more than 10 branches, they can be verified with a list.
Google My Business optimization
- The more data you enter, the better. Additional phone numbers, opening hours, attributes, payment methods – give maximum information.
- Select additional categories. Please note that if configured incorrectly, they will reduce relevance, which will negatively affect card issuance.
- If booking/reservation or reservation is relevant for the business, place the links that allow you to quickly carry out the action directly in the GMB profile. This is positively perceived by the search engine.
- Add images, they encourage users to perform targeted actions, which was confirmed during a large-scale study. More photos – more routes and calls to the company.
- By posting news, promotions, and discounts on Google Posts, you encourage users to make clicks and clicks, spend even more time watching cards.
- Work with reviews (not only on maps but also on other relevant sites – so you have a direct opportunity to influence the star rating of your business. It also takes into account Google, identifying those companies that should appear at the top of the issuance.
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