Google My Business (GMB) offers companies a fantastic opportunity to appear in Google search results. The best thing about creating a Google My Business listing is that it’s free!

Why Should You Create a GMB Page?

Google My Business provides you with the ability to list your business location on Google Maps and local search results.

You can display important information about your business, including the opening/closing times, contact phone number or a link to your website. More recently Google has also released a new feature allowing you to post a link to articles or up and coming events. More about that later.

The listing is free and should be regarded as a necessity by all businesses. If your business is an online business and you don’t have a physical shop then you should still consider having a Google My Business page.

Improve Your Businesses Local Search Visibility

Setting up your Google My Business listing is one of the simplest and most effective ways of setting your business up to be found online. You’ve probably done a Google search at some point such as, ‘places to eat near me’, then you’ll notice that Google returns a list of three locations where you can eat based on your current location. The three businesses that have shown as a result of your search query are one step closer to attracting you as a customer.

If these places to eat did not have a Google My Business Page then they would not have shown. Think about this in the context of your business, whatever product or service you may be selling. How can local searches benefit your business?

Optimising Your Google GMB Local Page

After you’ve set up and claimed your GMB page for your business the next step is to make sure it’s optimised and you’ve filled in all the important information. You should aim to include as much information as possible on your GMB listing as possible.

When people have done their search, and seen your business in the search results, their next step will be to click on the business to find out more information, such as contact details and directions.

The way people search is changing and information needs to be instant. If you haven’t set an accurate business address then it won’t be easy for people to physically find you. If your business isn’t easy to find then people will go somewhere which is easy to find and you will lose that potential business.

This is the online environment businesses must now compete in, so make sure your business is taking advantage of the way people are searching online and not letting it hinder your ability to attract new customers.

More Posts to Google My Business

You can now attract more interest by adding posts to your GMB profile. The content will show in Google search and on map results.

To add a post all you have to do is go to your GMB account and create a new post. You will be able to upload an image, write up to 300 words of text or an event title, which will include the start/end date.

There is then an option to add a call-to-action with a variety of button choices including ‘Learn more’, ‘Reserve’, ‘Sign up’, ‘Buy’ and ‘Get offer’.

The post option gives you great flexibility to promote events, share your content and promote your products or services, highlighting when you are running special offers. The post will last for 7 days before you will need to replace it with a new post. Google will email you a reminder to do this.

The screenshot of the Innovation Visual GMB page shows how we used the post feature to promote our Google Retail & Shopping Livestream event. As you can see a clear date and time is shown, alongside a clear call-to-action to ‘Sign-up’.

If you have set up Google My Business, but haven’t yet used the posts feature then hopefully you now know a bit more about the benefits.

Remember to keep an eye on your posts, as it appears that Google posts expire after seven days of posting them, meaning you will have to update them weekly. Events can be listed for longer and automatically expire on the day of the event, which is handy.

Make sure that your business has an up to date and detailed Google My Business page. If you have not taken the time to create and optimise one then you’re missing out on one of the best free ways of appearing in Google search results. All it takes is time and knowledge to optimise your page, so make sure you do it. You could see the benefits instantly.

If you would like to know more about Google My Business and local search then why not contact us