7 Key Ways To Optimize Google My Business Listing For Business [+Infographic]

Google has transformed the way search work. People can easily find what they're looking for without even having to visit the website.

To begin getting your business found better in Google Maps and regular Google Search, a secure place to start is Google My Business. So, create and claim your Google My Business listing asap!

But your job does not have to stop here! Do not commit the mistake of claiming a Google My Business listing, adding the bare minimum details, and then abandoning it. You need to optimize it!

Take a few minutes every day for Google My Business optimization and help your business appear in search even more frequently.

Businesses with a complete and accurate (optimized) Google My Business listing get 7x more clicks and are 2.7x more likely to be considered reputable.

Thus, when used correctly, GMB is a powerful tool that can increase your revenue and can lead to improved customer loyalty. In this guide, I've listed down several different ways using which you could optimize your Google My Business page without much struggle.

However, before we start, it’s important to know what are a few more reasons that make Google My Business a valuable tool to use.

Click here to download detailed infographic on optimizing your GMB listings.

What benefits do you get by using Google My Business?

• Google My Business doesn’t cost a penny! Seriously.
• The photos and videos you share on GMB allow your customers take a 360-view virtual tour of your business, product or service even before they land to your store!
• There is no barrier between you and your probable customers! All that's needed is a click to reach you -- the phone number and website address you've listed are clickable.
• Managing your online reputation and interaction with customers ends up fun with GMB
• Google My Business closely ties in AdWords, Insights, Google+, Maps and Search which makes dealing with your online presence much easier

So since you have known there is considerable upside for utilizing Google My Business let's dive in to learn how to completely optimize your Google My Business page.

How to optimize Google My Business Page?

1. Optimize Google My Business Profile
2. Consistent Information
3. High-Quality Images
4. Collect Reviews

Read on to discover the tips for Googe My Business Optimization:

1. Perfect Your Google My Business Profile

Creating a perfect profile with accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date information is the first step to optimizing your Google My Business page.

Your profile is the first thing that people come across when they search for your business on Google. There are several parts of your Google My Business profile, so how about we begin with the necessary parts you have to fill out:

• Name:- Your business listing name ought to be above anything else. The safest and the smartest bet would be to keep it consistent with what is currently listed on your website.

• Address:- It is the next essential element! Pin your business location accurately on GMB.

• Phone number:- Ideally, you want just enough information to eliminate the barriers among you and your customers. On that note, don’t forget to include your phone number. As mentioned earlier, your customer is just a click away with the clickable phone number and address in your Google My Business profile.

  You can shift your focus on business category once you’ve provided NAP details of your listing.

• Business category:- The category you choose will describe your business and connect you to customers searching for the services you offer. Remember, your business category is one of many factors that can influence your local ranking on Google. Thus, you should consider your keyword strategy when adding a business category.

  Be specific while picking up a category. For instance, if you manage a grocery store that is located in India, you would choose “Indian Grocery store” as your primary category rather than "Grocery store."

  

• Description:- Google My Business allows 750 characters worth of information to be displayed on your listing. The 'description' section normally comprise of eye-catching information that mirrors the purpose of the brand or business. I'd recommend you not to stuff this with keywords, but be sure to incorporate at least one right search term in there to reflect your business accurately, while helping to improve search visibility.

  Note:- Google only displays the first 250 characters of the description in the knowledge panel, thus prioritize the information accordingly.

  

In addition to the above elements, you can additionally incorporate information like website URL, hours of operation, availability, etc in your Google My Business profile depending on your industry.

2. Make Sure The Information You Share Is Consistent Across Web

Whether you manage a single local listing or hundreds, any form of inconsistencies in the information --particularly NAP details (name, address and phone number)-- you share on the web will negatively impact your search ranking and would act as a barrier to customer discovery. Thus guarantee that every information you share on your Google My Business listing is consistent with what is currently listed on your website, social media or anywhere online.

That might sound simple; however, little differences can slip in easily. Don't let that happen! Listing accuracy is Google's method for deciding whether or not it can trust a local business search result and if you are not taking it seriously, it is the biggest mistake that you are committing.

Suggested Read: How To Manage Google Reviews For Multiple Locations

3. Load Relevant, High-Resolution Images For Google My Business Optimization

Once you've incorporated the necessary information in your listing, you can move on and personalize the visual aspect of your Google My Business page. Keep in mind; no listing is complete without photos!

Businesses with photos on their listings are 2x as likely to be considered reputable and get 35% more clicks.

That being said, make sure to upload a profile photo, logo, cover photo, and general photos to give people an idea of what your business actually looks like and what products and services they can expect from you.

It’s likely that more the users envision your business online, the more will they be interested in it.

Pro tip - The photos that you add to your GMB listing should follow Google best practices:

• The images should be of JPG or PNG format
• The size of the pictures should lie between 10KB and 5MB
• The minimum resolution of the photos should be 720x720 px
• The photo should be well focused and well-lit and should have no alterations or excessive use of filters.

4. Collect Reviews For Google My Business Optimization

Google My Business page reviews are crucial to your overall marketing mix!

It’s really straightforward why you need to embrace reviews on Google Business Listing:

• They offer greater visibility in organic and paid search results
• They improve trust and consumer confidence in your brand and products

In short, Good reviews = Improved sales owing to better on-page conversions.

These reviews show up front-and-center for all to see whenever they perform a google search to look for a business, service or product on Google. Those star ratings and the online reviews make it easier for consumers to quickly compare competitors, and know whether a business can be trusted and if their products or services are good or bad.

But how do you collect more Google reviews?

It’s simple. Start with these steps:

• Ask your happy customers to leave a review on your Google My Business page. Stress the significance of their feedback for your business! Tell them how their reviews help people who need your services to find your business.
• Respond to all the reviews you get on your listing regardless of whether they are good, bad or neutral.

You can use Statusbrew to manage and reply promptly to thousands of reviews on your Google My Business page. Just head on to www.statusbrew.com and select the plan of your choice to start a 14-day trial.

If you receive a 5-star rating, that's great! Utilize this further to your advantage to transform a customer into a passionate supporter of your business. But if you receive a rating below 3-stars, reach out those customers to understand what issue they confronted. Customers appreciate it when businesses pay attention to their concerns, and they appreciate it, even more, when they can see the genuine effort and intention behind it.

Related: You may also want to read this complete guide on How to get Google My Business Page Reviews!

5. Do not violate Google’s guidelines

Avoid any sort of penalty-inducing offenses that could lead to permanent suspension of your Google My Business account. Getting your account suspended can be very stressful and bad for business. Therefore, make sure that anything you do to optimize your Google My Business listing is following the strict GMB guidelines.

Read through Google’s guidelines so you have a full understanding of what is and what is not allowed to represent your business on Google My Business.

Some of the principal things to avoid are:

• Excessive use of keywords in your Google My Business listing.
• Having multiple Google My Business listings for the same business location.
• Harassing, abusing, or using untrustworthy tactics with potential or existing customers.
• Review gatekeeping i.e. using a third-party platform to filter out negative reviews.

Use common sense and don’t try to play the system or get additional listings and you’ll probably stay on the right side of Google.

6. Post content on your Google My Business page

It’s likely that people looking for a business online will evaluate it based on its recent posts. Ensure you're posting quality, relevant, and useful content on your Google My Business account. The key is to post valuable content highlighting your product or service, showcasing any business related upcoming events, using relevant and high-quality media to update on a recent company advancement.

The Sellingwarnerrobins is a great example of how a brand is using Google Posts to promote their business.

To begin creating posts,

• Sign in to your Google My Business account.
• Click create post option and choose the type of post you'd like to create.
  Google My Business enables you to include text, photos, videos, events, offers, and a button to your post.
• Click each field and enter the information you wish to share.
• You can also see the preview of your post to get an idea oh how it will look on your Google My Business page.
• Click publish once you are happy with how your post looks.

While making your post, you should:

• Consider uploading media with the following size requirements:
  Minimum: 400x300 pixels and 10 KB size limit.
  Maximum: 10000x10000 pixels and 25 MB size limit.

• Keep in mind that Google allows a maximum of 300 words per single post thus make it eye-catching while keeping it to the point.

• Consider speaking straight to your audience without using hard to understand industry jargons.

Since you have known all that is important to create a great Google My Business post, start sharing your business information with people and boost your sales.

7. Optimize your Google My Business listing based on insights

Google My Business has amazing inbuilt tools that give you incredible insights for each post that lets you genuinely understand how users interact with your business information on Google.

Using GMB insights, you can discover:

• How customers look for your business?
• Where customers view your business listing on Google?
• What activities clients perform when they visit your business listing, whether they visit your site, click on directions, take a look at the photos or call you?
• Areas that your customers are living?
• When people using Google are visiting your business listing?

Based on these insights, you must always optimize your listing. For instance, if a lot of people are searching for directions, you can infer that the address on the listing is likely not detailed enough.

Conclusion

Optimizing your Google My Business page is very important to improve your online visibility. These 7 tips for Google My Business optimization would put you ahead of your competitors and would help you rank high on Google search and maps (improve your SEO). Put this advice to use, and you should expect to see some gains in your GMB insights and in your store.

Infographic

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