Google My Business Optimization for Maximizing Your Business Online
Get your business noticed in the map pack with our GMB services
Looking for a Professional to optimize your Google My Business listing?
Google My Business Optimization is one of the most important aspects for business owners to consider when improving their digital presence and ensuring that potential customers can find them. With Google's algorithm constantly changing, businesses must keep up with the latest changes and optimize GMB. The Google My Business dashboard helps business owners manage their business listings.
Towne Lake SEO offers white-glove service to get your Google My Business listing looking its best.
What is Google My Business Optimization?
Google My Business (GMB) could be the most important local business listing site your business could be on. It’s not new news that Google is the largest search engine in the world. To help customers find local business listings, Google has created this potent tool. This free tool lets any business owner tell Google exactly what their business is about, who they serve, and where they provide service.
Home service providers like HVAC contractors or Roofers have a chance to increase their online presence and get in front of potential customers even if they don’t have a website. The Google business listing allows the business owner to provide critical business details like business name, phone number, business description, select business categories, and business hours.
What is an internet marketing company?
There are approximately 5.6 billion searches on Google every day, making Google search engine by far the largest search engine in the world. For internet marketing purposes having a Google property that is optimized to speak directly to your customers is one of the ultimate local SEO tools on the market.
Our Google search guide for beginners talks about how Google has added additional features to the Search Engine Results page. (SERPs.) The 3 listings we see under google maps on the search results page are only the most relevant Google My Business listings in that area.
Google My Business listings have become so important that only the top three optimized google business profiles are given prominence only second to paid advertising.
Unlike paid advertising, potential customers can call your business right from the Google search business listing. There are other benefits to optimizing your Google My Business Listing. Local businesses can receive and communicate with customers in real-time through messages through the business account. Additional features allow a service area business to add google posts, business addresses, and up-to-date business offers.
Why should you have a professional help optimize your Google My Business Listing?
There are many ways to fill out your Google business listing and make sure that you are optimized for relevant searches. Towne Lake SEO realizes each industry is different, and customers search slightly differently from region to region. Those differences and variations could result in your Google My Business Listing showing on the first spot on Google maps or not even making the top 10 pages.
The slight variances in search patterns have been shown to cause a wide range of results for several companies providing Google My Business Optimization.
Towne Lake SEO takes a close look at competitors in your specific area to find what Google search is currently rewarding. Doing this initial step of competitive research on multiple businesses already showing in the top spots on Google maps allows Towne Lake SEO to reverse engineer how to best structure your google my business account. It is a time-consuming process, but it is the quality of the end product our customers are looking for in the end.
The Number One Mistake Local Business Owners Make with Google My Business.
The Number one mistake local business owners make with their business account is not keep the account updated. For local businesses to reach potential customers, one of the primary focuses should be to keep your google my business listing up to date and active.
Google likes to see activity on a business listing. Encourage customers to leave reviews and post questions. Under the business profile, answer and respond to all customer reviews and questions with local SEO-focused responses.
The role Google My Business listing plays in Google Business SEO optimization.
Your GMB listing should be the cornerstone of your internet marketing and local SEO efforts. To truly optimize your online presence for search queries, your website and GMB listing should reflect each other in business information, structure, design, and services offered. This holistic approach is how a business solidifies its position in the first position of organic search results and Google maps.
How to use Google My Business effectively?
As you start putting in the work to create an optimized Google business profile, remember this is not a one-time task. Your GMB listing should be updated regularly, creating google posts, google business offerings, responding to online reviews, and checking your business dashboard for other suggested updates users may have added. This is especially true for service area businesses as anyone can suggest an update be made to your GMB listing.
We have seen business accounts, phone numbers, business websites, and a business category changed from the suggested edits feature by google users. To make sure that your GMB listing is used effectively, you have to use it and stay active.
Google my business tips and tricks
To help business owners manage their Google My Business account, Google has provided a business dashboard. From the business dashboard, business owners can have a high-level view of their analytics business name, activity, potential customers views, how many views came through search queries or Google maps.
A business can post pictures and videos. The optimal picture size for Google posts should be at least 400×300 pixels and 10Kb up to a maximum of 10000×10000 with a 25Mb upper size limit. Most of Towne Lake SEO GMB business posts are 1200×900.
Optimize Google My Business listing
One important factor for your GMB listing is to select the right business category for your local business. There are a couple of free tools to help find what your competitors are currently using. These tools are:
- PlePer
- GMB Crush
- GMB Spy
PlePer
Each tool has its unique purpose to help find the Google My Business account information you need from your competitors to reverse engineer an optimized Google My Business listing. With a free account, you will have access to an API KEY that will allow PlePer Chrome plug-in to quickly see in-depth back-end information like business category, business address, business phone number. .
GMB Crush
GMB Crush does many things, but GMB Crush will go more in-depth on the GMB listing to pull the number of reviews if the business owner is responding to the reviews, the number of posts the business listing has all time, and past 90 days.
GMB SPY
GMB Spy is a lightweight plugin that only gives the business category or business categories a business listing has selected to use.
GMB Ranking Factors
Understanding some of the top-ranking local search results ranking factors for local Google maps and localized organic ranking is important. According to Moz, The Local Google Map ranking factor is Google My Business Signals (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title)Distance
Google created the Google My Business tool for local searches providing business owners the opportunity to tell Google their service area. As a result, the Google local pack will show the local business to potential customers near the business location. This is a great way to serve customers higher by eliminating business information from the Google local pack. A customer is outside of the business service area.Relevance
Creating google posts about business services and requesting customers for Google reviews is a great way to build the relevance of your Google My Business account. Creating google posts about business services and requesting customers for Google reviews is a great way to build the relevance of your Google My Business account. Google My Business is Google’s version of Yelp. Google maps help Google to get the latest information about businesses that are top-of-mind for users. Google has an opportunity to rank Google My business accounts based on performance (this means Google picks the best Google my business listings for customers who routinely use google maps with relevant information).Prominence
To a point, you can control the prominence of your Google My Business account and increase your search engine results pages rankings by staying active. Showing Google that your account is active by updating offers, Sevices, Google Posts, upload photos, proper primary category selection, utilizing the business messaging feature your Google My Business listing will be rewarded.
How to optimize your Google Business Profile?
If you are looking for a way to optimize your Google My Business profile, you have come to the right place. The first step to Google My Business optimization is knowing and understanding what is currently working with your competitors. Towne Lake SEO has already talked about how important it is to do in-depth research on the competition. But in case you missed it. .
Research to find out what the competition is currently doing to outrank Your Google My Business Listing.
Yes, Research your competition. While researching your competition, notice if the top local search results have a keyword in the business name. Are addresses listed, or are they hidden? What is the prominent business category used? Are there multiple categories selected for the business? Do your competitors have positive reviews? Does their Google My Business listing include team photos?
These are all some of the questions you will need to ask yourself when researching your competitors.
Top Ten Ways Local Businesses Optimize their Local Search Results.
1. Create/Claim & Verify GMB Listing
The first step may seem a little obvious, but you would not believe how many Google My Business listings are not claimed or verified. If you have not already created or claimed your Google My Business account, Towne Lake SEO offers this service. Our Google My Business account creation will work with you to properly set up, verify, and optimize your Google My Business account.
Verify Your GMB Listing
When setting up your Google My Business account, Google will send you a postcard in the mail with a code. This postcard is used to verify your address and Google My Business listing. Make sure to log into your Google My Business account and verify your Google My Business listing.
2. Add Consistent NAP Information
To maximize your digital efforts, keep all business listings, including social media accounts, citations like BBB, and website consistent with Name, Address, Phone number (NAP.) Several services help business owners manage these listings. However, a good digital marketing company like Towne Lake SEO will do this for you.
3. Optimize Description
Your Google My Business description should give a summary of your business while providing action words, solving problems your customers have, and contain keywords and phrases used to find your business. For example, Towne Lake SEO’s Google My Business description is the following:
“Towne Lake SEO is a digital marketing company located in Woodstock, GA, specializing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and content creation services. We have been helping businesses nationwide with these techniques to get your business in front of customers who are actually looking for your services and have the expertise necessary to improve your business’s bottom line.
Our team is small but knowledgeable – we know what it takes to rank on Google Page One for any keyword! Whether you are new to SEO or an expert yourself, Towne Lake will work with you every step of the way. Call us today at 770-744-2531 for more information about how our professional expertise can improve your business’s bottom line.”
As you can see, this tells a potential customer exactly who we are, where we are based, what we do, addresses the credibility of our team, and a call to action.
4. Select Business Categories
Selecting the right Google My Business categories for your business is how the search engine will categorize your company. Because selecting the right Google My Business Category for your company is so important, there needs to have been competitive research done to find out what your competitors are doing to rank for the valuable keywords.
Primary Business Category
A Primary Google My Business category is the first and main category your business is listed under.
Secondary Business Category
There can be several secondary categories your Google My Business listing can have, but it is recommended not to go too crazy selecting every relevant category. Selecting too many secondary categories for your Google My Business listing can dilute your business’s authority.
5. Add your businesses services
Too many business owners skip this step, but Google is giving your business an opportunity to feature your business’s services on their property to build relevance. It’s crazy not to take advantage of this opportunity. Just like the business description, take your time to craft a fully optimized description for each service carefully. You never know your business services might end up in the knowledge panel.
6. Add Quality Images
Having quality images is can go a long way. Potential customers view your images. We have on average 100 – 200 views per week and counting just on our images. You can upload several images to your Google My Business profile, from the cover photo, log images to team photos.
Uploading a good cover photo will help define your business and give customers a first impression of your brand.
7. Generate & Respond to Reviews
Have a system in place to ask existing customers to leave a review on your Google My Business profile. Once they do, make sure to take the time to write out a thoughtful response thoroughly. Every business owner likes to get positive reviews, but how do you respond to negative reviews?
Negative reviews can be disheartening. First, find out if the review is truthful. Many people give fake reviews in an attempt to make some businesses look bad. If it is a fake review, report it to Google and give them at least a week to review and possibly remove the review. If Google does not remove the review, you have 1000 characters to write a well-written response to boost your SEO for local search purposes.
If the review is from an actual customer, reach out to the customer and attempt to write things. If they still refuse to update or remove the review, respond professionally, first apologizing for the bad experience and that you want to make it write. Plug your business’s best features and welcome them back for a chance to make things write.
8. Service Area Location for Google Search
Using Google My Business to increase your local search online presence. Indicate the cities and areas that your business serves. If your business has multiple locations, you should indicate that. This helps tremendously in local search engines.
9. Create meaningful posts
Use meaningful Google posts to let your customers know what is going on in your Google My Business account. This is a great opportunity to show off your physical location. We recommend posting regularly. Our testing results have shown to pay off to attempt to post every day your business is open.
Since most businesses are not using Google posts in Google My Business, we have not found the need to go beyond once a day in our testing.
10. Create Offers to match our services
Create offers to match your services. This is another way to show Google what your business offers. Building offers around your services might sound redundant, but services are not your offerings. They are classified differently, and why Google provides the opportunity for businesses to showcase their business offers.
Towne Lake SEO - Google My Business Optimization Services
Are you ready to have Towne Lake SEO optimize your GMB profile?
Google My Business optimization is a way for business owners to promote their businesses online. Google My Business Optimization (GMB) helps you connect with your audience, generate reviews from customers and prospects alike, and provide an overview of what services you offer. To get the most out of Google My Business optimization, you must take time to create posts about your business or share updates on social media channels like Facebook or Instagram. For more information on how Google My Business can help grow your digital marketing strategy, contact us today!