How Google My Business Improves Ranking Factors
Google My Business is a good way to increase your online presence and make it easier for potential customers to find your business. It’s high quality service can help your digital marketing online.
Google My Business can help to rank your business higher within the local search results. When a potential customer searches for a service Google My Business listings are the first things that will be displayed within the search results so making sure you are high up is key if you want to beat your competitors.
Sign Up and Verify
First of all, you should sign up if you haven’t already and ensure that your business is verified. There are a few ways to verify your business such as via phone where you will be sent a unique pin or through the mail in which the pin will be sent on a postcard.
You can also receive the pin through your email account and once you have input this into Google My Business you will be recognised as a legitimate business and you will start to be ranked in the search results.
Choose the Right Category
To ensure that there is no confusion, you should list your business in the correct category to make it easier for people searching for your products/services to find you. You can only choose from predefined categories so try to choose the ones that are most relevant to your business as custom categories are no longer available.
Try to choose only 2 to 3 as any more might make it even more confusing than what it already was.
Add Photographs
You should make sure that there are photographs of the outside and inside of your business to help customers identify it when searching.
Customers may have seen your business before and will be able to find you faster. It also gives a good first impression to new customers as if there are no photos or they’re not high quality images, people may not trust the professionality of your business.
Make Sure Business Hours Are Correct
This might be an obvious one, but you’d be surprised how many businesses that don’t display these properly on the search engines. You should ensure that you have the correct opening and closing times for everyday including any holiday periods. If the site states you are open when you are in fact closed then customers may be upset if they travel all the way to your business only to have their time wasted.
Ask Customers For Reviews
Reviews are one of the most important factors when it comes to ranking your business. If you are not encouraging people to leave reviews then many will not and you will be losing out on business because of it.
Research shows that when prompted, more than half of these customers are happy to leave a review about their experiences. The more reviews you have, the higher your ranking and the more trust people will have in your business. Now this can come with either a positive review, or a negative review. If you seem to be getting many negative reviews, we may be able to help!
Respond to Reviews
Now that you have asked for reviews, you should make sure that you are responding to them whether they are good or bad. Responding to reviews allows you to engage with your audience and will show your customers that you care about what they think further building trust and credibility. Also, you can address bad reviews and potentially turn them round if the issue is resolved.
Merge Any Duplicate Accounts / Listings
Sometimes after setting up a Google My Business account there are duplicate listings for the same business. If this happens it may cause confusion amongst customers and could cost your potential business. To fix this, you should claim any duplicate listings and then either merge or delete them so that there is only one listing.
Add Your Services / Products
Some customers may already know what you provide, but for new customers it may be off putting if you are vague and don’t have any of your products/services listed. This feature allows Google My Business accounts to list services/products that you provide and adds them as keywords which can mean that your business can be found even easier.
When listing products, it will allow you to upload pictures, prices, titles and descriptions so that potential customers know exactly what you are providing.
All of these steps above help optimize your Google rankings (or on any other search engine). To check how your rankings are being displayed on Google’s searches, Google ‘my business page’ to see how it is being listed.