How to Optimise Your Google My Business Listing

If you’re looking for a location based SEO solution, the Google My Business is the right place to start. The Google My Business is Google’s free Service that allows one to organically attract local clients through web searches and Google Maps. It provides information about phone number, address, business hours, and methods of payment. Optimising it significantly increases the chances of discovery. It is unfortunate that most people don’t give it as much importance as they do other ways of connecting with possible clients such as social media. Here’s a list of things you can do to optimise your listing on Google My Business.

1.Set it up

The very first thing you must do is to set up the account. This is done by going to the Google My Business page and clicking ‘Start Now’. Fill out the details as consistently and accurately as possible.’ Once you’ve done that, pick a category. If you don’t find the exact category that your business belongs to, pick a general one that best describes your business.

2. Get verified

The next thing to do is to verify your address. It is necessary to get visibility and performance and can be done easily by having Google send you a verification code to the listed address through mail. This usually takes a week or so. Once you enter the code, your analytics will be enabled.

3. Posts and Photos

Now that you have your business listed and verified, it’s time to start posting. These posts are not unlike social media posts and are displayed when someone searched for your business listing. Events and blogs links both make for good post ideas. You can even add photographs to grab the viewers attention. Ideally, you should add a logo and a cover photo along with product photos, if applicable.

4. Reviews

Every review and star rating that you get counts. So encourage happy customers to rate your business. A better ranking can help improve your click-through rates by making you stand out amongst the other search results.

5. Messaging

Messaging lets you connect directly to your potential customers. You can enable it from your dashboard and even set up an auto-reply option. It is a new feature that is only available on mobile browsers but it is expected to be made available to other devices and apps soon.

6. Q&A

Probably the best way to know about customers is by allowing them to ask questions. The Q&A lets you to interact with the potential customers and answer their queries. Google notifies you when a question has been asked by e-mail.

7. Services and Menus

The services list helps you to share information such as the services offered and price in your listing. It is for service related businesses only. Just go to info tab, scroll down to the services section and you can add or edit items on the list of services.

It is worth noting that Google can suspend a listing if it is found to be offending certain guidelines so it is important that you go through the said guidelines carefully.

Lastly, it is very important to keep all information up to date.

Getting listed on the Google My Business is well worth the time, as it diverts more local customers your way. The more people engage in a listing, the higher it will be ranked in local as well as general search engine listings. Be it an established business or a startup, both can benefit from keeping their listings updated and optimized.