Be one of the businesses to reap the rewards of having Google My Business!

Telephone books are most certainly at the end of their life and more and more people searching online in search engines such as Google, having a Google My Business listing enables you to reach potential customers that would have otherwise missed your business!

Google My Business (GMB) is more than a listing. It enables you to connect with customers across Google Search and Maps. And with more than 53% of businesses who do not yet have a listing, don’t let that be you!

Counting down from 5, here are benefits to having a GMB listing:

Benefit #5 – Customers Can Find You

GMB helps customers find not only your business (especially with no more telephone books!) but also your physical location and even better, you can list multiple locations if your business is in other areas.

Don’t worry if you are a service based business, as you can still list without having to display your physical address (check out mine – I don’t have my address listed!).

Benefit #4 – Better Search Visibility

Potential customers use many search engines everyday and if you have a physical location, it means that not only will you show up in the search results, but also on maps!

Whether searching for local electricians or restaurants, Google maps quickly populates with red markers, each indicating a local business that meets your search criteria. This is a great benefit that allows users to instantly see how close you are to their location, increasing the likelihood that they will pay you a visit!

You can show up like a search I recently did for electricians – you will see I didn’t even have to use a postcode to search, I just typed in electricians and it bought up many near me!

Benefit #3 – Display Useful Information

Immediately after searching, your key and most useful information such as Business Name, Telephone Number, Opening Hours and Location displays immediately so it is seen by the searcher, where-as if it is not listed, they have to click through to my website to get the contact information (and hopefully your site isn’t down!) so that could be a hindrance as it is another action to perform before they can get my contact details.

Benefit #2 – Customers Insights

GMB can help businesses gain a better insight into their customers so they can then improve their business/ website listing or GMB listing.

Basic information that you can see in your GMB Dashboard:

• How customers search for your business
• Queries or search terms) used to find your business
• Where customers view your business on Google
• Customer actions
• Phone calls
• Photo views / quantity

All of this information enables you to start find out more information about your customer which helps you improve. Of course to get really good insights, be sure to have Google Analytics installed on your site as this provides a much more in depth insights into your customer.

Benefit #1 – It’s FREE

And for the number one benefit of why you should have a Google My Business list…it is a free marketing tool which can increase the chance of being found online!

But be sure to make sure your entire profile is fully set up and completed with all the required information. You can list:

• Business Name
• Address
• Phone Number (these three things can be referred to as your NAP – name, address, phone)
• Photos | Logo
• Products | Services
• Opening Hours | Special Open or Closed Days (ie: Christmas)
• Service Areas
• Website
• Appointment link
• Brief Description of your Business
• Opening Date
• Offers | Updates | Promotions

And then of course you can also have:

• Reviews
• Questions and Answers

I have found recently that when I am searching for a service, the ones I have found do not have a GMB listing and when clicking through to their website, have found that it’s not working either, so for them that is a lost customer and ultimately revenue. Hence, I created a special for July 2020!

I am offering to claim your GMB listing, set it up as well as provide you with training so that you can continue to maintain your listing for $69. If you are interested in this offer, please send me an email.

Until next time!
Jo