When looking for a new restaurant to eat at, a store to explore, or a specific service, customers are likely to turn to Google to find a business. The best way to attract this prospective audience to your website and to enhance your local marketing initiatives is to set up and optimize your Google Business Profile.

With a Google Business Profile listing, you can increase traffic and build connections with this new prospective audience. If you don’t have a Google Business Profile account setup – you risk losing this valuable web traffic to your competitors. 

If you aren’t familiar, Google Business Profile is the business profile on the right-hand side of the Google search engine result page. Google Business Profile also integrates with Google Maps and is usually a prospect’s first impression of your brand. This mini-profile of your business shows crucial business information prospects need to learn more about your business. Once you set up your profile, you can improve your local search rankings and increase your brand visibility. 

We’re here to walk you through how important it is to create, maintain, and optimize your Google Business Profile.

Let’s dive in:

What is Google Business Profile?

Google Business Profile is formally known as Google My Business (GMB). This online business profile always shows up on Google and integrates with Google Maps, allowing you to connect with prospects in and around your community.  

Your Google Business Profile allows your customers to share reviews, photos and ask questions. This is a free tool that Google provides for all businesses, and it’s relatively easy to set up on your own. 

Setting Up Your Google Business Profile Listing

Setting up your Google Business Profile is a straightforward process. You’ll want to start the setup process as soon as possible. It can take around 10-14 days to be approved by Google. 

Here’s how to get started:

• Sign into your Google account: If you don’t already have a Google account tied to your business domain, create a new account and use your business email domain. 
• Create a Profile: When you create a profile, enter your name or choose your business name from the provided list. If someone has already claimed ownership of your business, you must request ownership of your profile.
• Add in the Details: Choose a business category, add your address, business hours, website, and phone number, and add the service areas for your business. 
• Verify Your Business: Google will give you a few ways to verify your business. You can verify your business at the moment or come back later to complete your profile. 

When filling out your information, you’ll want to provide as many accurate details as possible, to avoid getting flagged or unverified.

Optimizing Business Information

Once your Google Business Profile is set up, it’s time for the real work to begin. To ensure your profile complements your local marketing strategy, you must optimize your account regularly and ensure that everything is always up-to-date. This will help you build trust with your clients. 

Here’s what you’ll need to optimize your Google Business Profile:

Adding Photos and Videos

Visual content can show prospects and customers what your store looks like and what products or services you provide. When uploading images to your profile, you’ll want to only add clear, crisp, and high-quality content. Quality is always better than quantity. Choose pictures and videos that accurately represent your brand and would entice you to learn more. 

Google accepts JPG or PNG and recommends images be no bigger than 5 MB. You can also upload video clips that are 30 seconds or shorter with a resolution of 720p or higher.

Using Google Posts

Google Posts allow you to share events, offers, and company updates directly on your Google Business Profile listing. You can share images, text-only updates, and any marketing updates prospects and customers should know.

For example, let’s say you’re a tire shop wanting to bring in new business. For most cities and states, this market can be competitive and saturated. To bring new prospects to your business, you can use Google posts to share a new customer deal directly on your Google Business Profile listing. 

Managing and Responding to Reviews

Customer reviews are vital to your company’s success and overall online reputation management strategy. In a study done by PowerReviews in 2021, over 99.9% of customers read reviews when shopping online. While positive customer reviews can be a powerful tool to help you bring in new business, they can work against you, too. 

Google Business Profile allows businesses to respond to customers’ positive and negative reviews. As a business, you’ll want to regularly respond to negative reviews and find a resolution to your customer’s concerns or problems. This will help increase your credibility and humanize your brand. You’ll also want to respond to positive reviews and acknowledge your top supporters. 

Using Q&A Feature

The Questions and Answers feature allows customers to ask questions about your products, services, or business. If customers are asking questions and you aren’t responding, it can negatively impact the customer experience and your brand visibility. Try your best to ask questions quickly and promptly to improve customer satisfaction. This is a great practice to include in your online reputation management strategy and can help you grow your local search ranking. 

Utilizing Google Business Profile Insights

Google Business Profile also offers a suite of analytic tools you can use to understand your customer’s behaviors and interactions. You can use these metrics to make data-driven decisions.

For example, you may have tons of traffic coming to your Google Business Profile listing but not see a change in deals or revenue. You may want to add a special offer to your Google posts or upload new images and video content. 

Service Areas and Booking Features

To improve your local marketing, consider listing your service area. Your service area is the geographical location of where you service your products and services. Google classifies businesses into two different categories:

• Service-Area Businesses: These are businesses that service a specific location and make deliveries or offer in-house services to customers. Examples would be HVAC, cleaning services, or a florist. 
• Hybrid Businesses: These businesses have addresses customers shop at. Hybrid businesses may also deliver or visit clients, but most are at the address. Examples would be restaurants or coffee shops. 

Businesses can also turn on the booking feature on their Google Business Profile listing for their services. This helps eliminate friction and streamlines the booking experience for customers. You can manage your booking and waitlist directly on the platform. 

However, you’ll want to keep your bookings and waitlist customers top of mind to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. 

Regularly Updating Your Listing

Think of your Google Business Profile listing as an extension of your website’s homepage. You wouldn’t want to showcase inaccurate information. This could impact the customer experience. 

Whether you changed your holiday hours, phone number, or a temporary closure – you’ll want to ensure all this information is always up to date. 

Monitoring GMB for Unauthorized Changes

Lastly, you’ll want to monitor for unauthorized changes. 

Whether it’s a listing hijacking or an unauthorized change to your hours – it’s always best to get to the root of the problem of these changes before it becomes a bigger problem. 

Get Your Google Business Profile and Improve Your Local Search Rankings With Kanbar Digital

Optimizing your Google Business Profile listing is vital to your company’s success and local search rankings. If you don’t have an up-to-date profile, it could be offputting to your customer, inevitably pushing them to shop with your competitors. 

The team at Kambar Digital is here to help you maintain a positive online presence on Google and optimize your profile. 

Contact us today to learn more. 

FAQs about Google Business Profile

How do I get my Google Business Profile to rank #1?

The best Google Business Profiles are optimized and up-to-date. They have high-quality photos, accurate information, and relevant reviews.

How do I increase traffic to my Google business page?

To get more traffic to your Google Business Profile, you must make your listing a priority. Consider asking past customers to leave reviews on Google, post deals regularly, and ensure your Google Business Profile listing is optimized and accurately complements your brand. 

How do I promote my Google business page?

If you want to promote your Google My Business Profile and grow it organically, consider asking customers for reviews, posting new deals and offers with Google Posts, and responding to any reviews you get. This is a great way to show Google and your customers your account is active.

What is the difference between Google My Business and Google Business Profile?

Google My Business(GMB) is the former name of Google Business Profile. The Google business profile listing works the same way as a Google My Business(GMB) listing, and there are no “major” changes besides the name. 

The newest version aims to simplify the online reputation management process and makes Google My Profile optimization straightforward.