Top Tips for Google My Business

The Beginner’s Guide to Google My Business: How to Optimize Your Profile for Local Search and Stand Out in the Google Local Three-Pack

– Hey, I actually own this. This is mine!- This is me!- So, if you don’t have a Google My Business profile, you’re just not showing up for 90% of the people out there who are searching.- It’s gone, right? Poof!- Welcome to The Journey. I’m Google Your Business.- And I’m Morgan.- And today, we’re going over the beginner’s guide to Google My Business. So, Morgan, what is Google My Business?-
Just as a puzzle cannot be completed without all of its pieces, a team cannot succeed without the contributions of all its members. So, Google My Business, or GMB as the experts call it, allows local consumers to find your business on Google Web Search and Google Maps. It’s a one-stop shop for all of your business information, and users love it. It’s visual, it’s tied to the map in the middle of the search results page, and it’s great.- So, when I do searches, I usually see only three businesses pop up. Why is that?- That is known as the Google local three-pack. Basically, the best of the best businesses for that search result. The ones that have the most optimized profiles, the best of the best. They show up. They only show three.

Explore the Power of Google My Business in Boosting Local SEO Ranking: A Case Study on Dog Groomers in Phoenix

Sometimes it’s three and an ad, but that’s how you get to be there. You can click more results, and then you’ll see all of the Google My Business profiles for that search result, but yeah, that’s the cream of the crop that show up in the local three-pack.- [Google Your Business] I dig it. Awesome, so is this all something you can show us?- Yeah, absolutely. Let’s go check it out.- Cool.- All right, so let’s take a look at Google My Business in action. Let’s go to Google. com to see what this looks like.- [Google Your Business] You should search, how ’bout dog groomers.- [Morgan] Dog grooming? Okay, so let’s do a dog groomer in Phoenix, Arizona, and see what shows up.”Perfect! So, the first thing you can see is the local three-pack that we talked about, which is the maps. Google. Based on these three Google My Business profiles, Google has indicated that they are the most optimized and the best answers for dog groomers in Phoenix, Arizona. Right on! We have the Smelly Dog, Dog Town Pet Grooming, and The Hairy Dog.

The Smelly Dog’s optimized Google profile is a potential inspiration for small business owners.

So, let’s jump into the first one to see what’s so great about this profile.” “[Google Your Business] Other than the name?” “[Morgan] Other than the name, it’s pretty darn good. As you can see right here, The Smelly Dog has optimized their profile pretty well. They have their website link, directions, and their address. The hours of operation only say ‘open now.’ An area of opportunity here is that they could add full hours, so that way you can know when they close. You don’t want to go too late and have to go all the way back. They’re missing that, which is fine, but that’s an area of opportunity to fix. You can also see that there are questions that people have asked and then there are answers, in addition to lots and lots of photos about the business, where it’s located, what it looks like inside, some examples of dog grooming, and haircuts, and what to expect if you were to take your dog here.” “[Google Your Business] That’s so important, especially just how the outside looks.

Improve Your Business Visibility with Google My Business Maps and Listings

I don’t know how many places I’ve driven past and it’s just a wild goose chase trying to find it. That makes it super easy for me.” “[Morgan] And the nice thing about Google My Business, particularly with the maps, is that you can see where this business shows up. Maybe The Smelly Dog is too far away for you, so you can just click on one of the websites. I like Hot Dogs and Cool Cats All Breeds Grooming.”That seems more up my alley where I live, and then you can click to see if this is the right business for you. So, one other thing to point out, we’ve been talking about how you need to create or claim your profile. Here’s an example right here. All it says is ‘dog grooming,’ and there’s no information. It just has the location. Most likely, this was a user who just came in and said, ‘Hey, I’ve had my dog groomed here.’ A grooming place exists, but as you can see, there’s no information other than the zip code – literally nothing.

Boost Your Local Business Visibility with Google My Business: Reach 90% of Worldwide Search Traffic

So, there is this button here that says ‘Own this business?’ You can click it, and that’s how you can start the process to claim your profile. If I were this dog groomer, I would, for sure, do this right away because there’s so much information about my business that’s not here, and people are looking for it. [Google Your Business] Right. If anyone goes and sees that, they’re going to think it doesn’t exist and move on. So, that’s all I wanted to show you. I just wanted to give you a visual of what this looks like on the search results page so you can see what customers are seeing for your business when they search for you. [Audience] So, that was an awesome demo. Thank you. But what about the audience at home? Why should they set up a Google My Business account? – It gives you so much more visibility for your local business. 90% of the worldwide search traffic goes through Google.”So, if you don’t have a Google My Business profile, you’re not showing up for 90% of the people who are searching.

Maximize Your Business Reach with Google My Business Profile

It’s gone, poof! As I said before, having a Google My Business profile is a one-stop shop for your customers to learn everything about your business. They love clicking on the pretty map and can access your name, phone number, address, hours of operation, reviews, star ratings, and website. It’s just one link, but all the information is there. The last reason to set it up is that you can tap into really cool analytics about people who are visiting your Google My Business profile. I love analytics, but what type of analytics? What can we see? It gives you information about the number of people who are calling your business from that link, who are visiting your website, and all sorts of stuff. Alright, so you have me sold. How do we start? The first thing you need to do is create your Google My Business profile.

Maximize Your Presence on Google with a Fully Optimized Business Profile

Go to Google. com/business to create or claim your profile because sometimes you’ll have a profile already created by other users, and you need to claim that to say, ‘Hey, I actually own this! This is mine!’ Then, you need to put in some basic information about your website, name, phone number, and address. The next step is to optimize your profile. A lot of people fill in the basic information and go on their merry way, but Google doesn’t like that. They want a fully optimized profile. I know you don’t like that.”So, optimizing your profile means adding photos of your business, putting your menu (if you have one), responding to reviews, and all sorts of things to provide context and tons of information. If you have keywords that you’re targeting on your website for your business, you should sprinkle them in a little bit throughout. This will help with SEO. The more value you can add to your profile to get people to stay and look around, the better.

Maximize Your Business Potential with Google My Business: A Beginner’s Guide

I hope you found this beginner’s guide to Google My Business helpful so you can get started and get lots of business. Check out all those analytics and all the good stuff. If you’ve created or claimed your Google My Business account, let us know in the comments below. Like this video, subscribe to the channel, and ring that bell if you want to see these videos first. This has been The Journey, and we’re signing off.”