As a local business, your pool of competition is much smaller than the national and international brands. If you have a local company website, it doesn’t need to be found by everyone; it just needs to be seen online by the people who live in your community or State that is your target audience. Once you figure out how to make your business more searchable, the results can be significant. Want to know how?
Try Google My Business listing!
What is Google My business?
Google My Business (GMB) is a free online tool developed to help businesses manage their online presence across the Google platform. GMB is one of the many ways customers find your business online. GMB account can be explained as a combination of an online directory and a social media profile where you can share posts, post promotions, create a free Google Website, and run Google Ads to pay for targeted traffic.
How to get started?
Business owners create and claim ownership of their Google My Business (business.google.com) and supply it with vital information such as:
- Hours of operation
- Business location
- Contact number
- Products
- Website
- Photos
- Book Appointments
- Add Services
- Manage and Respond to Reviews
A good Google My Business listing should include all the necessary information, readily available for consumers without having to leave the search engine.
There is no maximum number of listings per account so you can manage them all through a single business profile and you’ll need a Gmail account to create a profile. If you already have a Google account, browse through your Google App list and select the “My Business” icon.
How to optimize a Google My Business Post?
- Images are more important than ever. Make sure to add an image or video to your post or promotion on Google My Business.
- What makes your business, product or service exciting and relevant? Make sure to create your posts with immediate value and relevant to your business.
- Google My Business Posts characters can only be 1500 at the most. So keep your caption short, simple, and enticing to draw or attract much attention.
- Post consistently (at least once or twice per week) and use hashtags.
- Promote your posts or promotions to expand your reach!
Here’s an example of how it actually looks on Google Search.
Why Google My Business Reviews Are Important?
An online review is as important as a personal recommendation. Customers are likely to spend 50% more on a business with “excellent” reviews. With these numbers, it’s safe to say that reviews can make or break a local business.
If your search result listing shows a 4 to 5-star rating with 10-15 reviews (and your competitor listings show less), that’s strong social proof that your product or service is more trustworthy than your competition in your potential client’s eyes!
How Do I Respond to Google My Business Reviews?
To respond to Google My Business on Desktop
1. Go to your Google My Business Dashboard (https://business.google.com)
2. Select “Reviews” at the Menu section located at the left side of your browser.
3. Click “Reply”
4. Once you’ve written your response, click “Post reply”
To respond to google My Business on Mobile
1. Download & Open the Google My Business app (link to App Store)
2. Tap “Customers”
3. Tap “Reviews”
4. Tap the review to which you’d like to respond
5. Once you’ve written your response, tap “Send”
How to Handle Google Business Reviews?
- Show appreciation and express gratitude
- Tailor your response in each Google review. Customize your responses so your clients feel appreciated and valued!
- Respond quickly to the feedback. It means you’re paying attention and care.
- Keep it short and respond to some reviews privately as well every once in a while.
- When dealing with an unsatisfied customer, be humble and focus on the issue. Avoid being so very defensive as it can turn away potential customers.
- When dealing with negative reviews, clear up the misunderstanding.
Before Responding On Google My Business Reviews:
- Take negative reviews positively. Take it as a challenge to tackle and an opportunity to learn.
- What is the customer saying? Determine the severity of the feedback before responding. While responding promptly to reviews is important, it’s fine to take a breather to process the information before responding to feedback.
- If you were in their situation, what would you want to resolve the problem?
- Find out from your customer what will make them happy, and serve that need to the best of your ability.
Stay on Top of Your Google Business Reviews. Responding to Google customer reviews helps you to stay on top of what customers are saying about your business, make improvements for your business, and identify your business strengths.
How to Track Google My Business (GMB) Insights?
Like every traffic source, it’s important to monitor the kind of audience you’re dealing with to help you make better marketing decisions. Google My Business offers lots of ways for you to understand how customers are finding your listing and how they interact with it.
Here are the ways you can measure the success of your GMB listing: (support.google.com)
- Direct searches: This happen when customer directly searched for your business name or address.
- Discovery searches: it’s when a customer searched for a category, product, or service that you offer, and your listing appeared.
- Branded searches: When customer searched for your brand or a brand related to your business. This category will only appear if your listing has appeared at least once for a branded search.
- Total searches: The total number of direct, discovery, and branded searches.
Here’s how your customers search for your business. This chart only shows the impressions (not clicks).
GMB Insights is a great marketing tool for your business to better understand where the traffic is coming from. Here you can monitor website visitors, phone calls and chats made directly from your GMB listing.
With Google My Business Insights, you can see where you can improve, whether it’s your posts or customer-generated photos. Google Insights will also give you a percentage of how many views you receive in comparison to similar businesses.
Why should I use GMB Insights?
Your Google My Business listing is one of the first online tools that local customers use to discover your business. It is another analytics tool to associate your marketing efforts and compare your business to similar businesses.
Quick Summary:
GMB helps business owners increase their online visibility and to help people find and review businesses in their local area. Claim your Google My Business (GMB) listing now, monitor your reviews, respond appropriately, and track your results later!
If you don’t have time to do it, Rohring Results is here to help!
