There is a feature in Google that surprising a lot of businesses miss and by doing so could be costing them a lot of money in missed sales.
Theres more to SEO than your website, not to mention AEO but thats a topic for another post. There is a feature in Google that surprising a lot of businesses miss and by doing so could be costing them a lot of money in missed enquirers and sales. Not only does it boost your natural rankings on Google but it provides potential customers information about your business, services, products and contact information without leaving the Google search results page.
Google My Business is often overlooked but if you have it setup correctly it can dramatically improve your rankings on Google. It provides Google with data that it uses to advertise your business and the best it is its free to use. It also provides you with the opportunity to leap frog your competition if they are not setup with Google My Business.
Let’s look at the key features of Google My Business.
Google reviews
Let me explain, let’s say a potential customer is searching on Google for a specific service in a certain location. Google displays the results on Google Maps and your competitor comes up top of the map and has 50 Google reviews, not only that, their Google My Business profile also displays on the right hand side of Googles results. Now let’s say you have not setup a Google My Business and you are displayed at the bottom of page one or even page two or three. Chances are your potential customer is going to click on your competitors details and through to their website. To be honest you would too if you saw a company with more 5 star reviews over a company that has none or only a handful. This is a powerful feature that you should be harnessing. Furthermore you can then reply back to each review, this has a positive impact on profile and shows potential customers that you are active. You can also use your Google reviews on your website by feeding them in dynamically or cherry picking the very best ones to display on your site and marketing material. Sharing a link with your customers where they can leave a review is easy, it can be shared as a web link, by email, WhatsApp and even as a QR code, all of which you can include on things like invoices, email footers and even on your own website.
Google Images
Google My Business also displays images of your business such as the exterior of your office for example and images of your products and services. This is a great way to visually show off your business and what you can do for your customers.
Google Map
A key feature of Google My Business is the Google map, this helps Google locate your business so that customers can see where you are located. It also helps Google index your web site for localised search results.
Business information
Sometimes a customer will simply search Google and not actually click through to your website. If your Google My Business profile is displayed you can include contact details such as your phone number, web address, opening hours, special announcements etc… This means a customer can simply call you from your Google My Business profile, especially useful if the customer is browsing Google on a phone.
Updates
A great feature of Google My Business and one that is missed, even if you have a profile is the facility to add Updates to your profile. This maybe a product or service launch, an offer, a sign up or a link to a product or service you are promoting. Updates allows you to add a button on each update that can link to a specific page on your site.
As you can see, Google My Business is a powerful tool that can help grow your business and revenue. If you would like more information about Google My Business please drop us an email.
