Have You Heard about Google My Business?

Google My Business is Google’s platform for creating, managing, and monitoring business listings. It is a good first step for companies that are just getting started on the web; but it has also become the main, one-stop-shop dashboard for businesses that previously used Google+ Local and Google Places for Business.

If your business has already claimed and verified your listing on one of the previous platforms, the information should have been automatically updated to Google My Business.

However, it’s still a good idea to check to make sure everything transferred correctly. If not, fix any inaccuracies or duplicates as soon as possible.

One of the major benefits of the service is that businesses will no longer have to update their information multiple times across different Google properties.

Google My Business will help you connect with more local consumers, whether they’re searching for you on organic search, Maps, or Google+. It is a fast way to help your business show up across the board; ultimately giving you more visibility and exposure.

Google My Business is a free service designed to get more business owners under the Google umbrella. Its tools and features make it very convenient for companies to manage their Google-related online properties in a single unified place.

With it, you can:

• Manage your business listings for Google+, Maps, and Search
• Upload pictures and videos of your business
• Interact and share content with followers on Google+
• Monitor and respond to reviews from across the web
• Start and maintain AdWords Express campaigns
• Access Insights reports and analytics for Google+ and YouTube

Google My Business can provide insight into how consumers are discovering your company, what they click on, and other interesting features that will provide you with powerful data that can be used to grow your business.

Gone are the days of the Yellow Pages.

Most people have a nice spot in there trash can for the phone book. Online is where customers look for to make purchasing decisions. Google recently revealed that every one in three Google searches has “local” intent. This means that millions of people look online for a pizza joint, a dry cleaner, or a salon in their own vicinity. If your company relies on local consumer traffic, this clearly shows the importance of making your business visible in the search results.

Today, attracting local customers is easier than ever thanks to technology that allows you to market in your town or even at individual postcode levels. Marketing within a defined geographic area is much more effective than blanket-style marketing if your ultimate goal is to target local consumers in your area. Basically, you need to fish where the fish are!

One of the best ways for you to connect with local customers is to get listed on online directories such as Google My Business. As you can imagine, this is the top local business listing platform simply because it’s owned by Google – the world’s top search engine.

According to Google, 50% of all the mobile consumers who search for a local business in a day visit it as well. Furthermore, 18% of them end up making a purchase. The importance of being ranked on the Google search engine is something we all know about. Today, the total global search engine market share of Google is between 70% and 90%, and this isn’t going to decline anytime soon.

Getting noticed in the search engine results pages (SERPS) includes far more than just aiming for a top spot in regular results and working on your search engine optimization.

A complete, verified, and optimized Google My Business listing allows you to connect with your target audience and be found in more ways than ever before.

Customers are the lifeline of every business. Without customers, businesses cannot flourish or even operate. Today, most of the successful businesses consider customers more than just ‘financiers.’ For them, customers are their friends, advocates, and regulars. The internet has made it easy for businesses to connect with their target audience every day.

However, finding new customers is still a complex and time-consuming process for them. Most businesses would love to see a display pop up that gives their location, phone number, hours of operation, address, customer reviews and link to their website when someone Googles their business.

Fortunately for you, this isn’t a pipe dream anymore.

Google My Business offers small businesses an amazing marketing opportunity as it attracts over a billion unique users every month. So ignoring this platform is a mistake that no local business should make.

10 Benefits of Using Google My Business to Attract More Local Customers and Clients

In order to get better idea of what Google My Business has to offer you, it is important for you to look at the benefits of using it. Following are the top ten reasons your business should be using it to attract more local leads:

1. It’s Free

A free marketing tool, Google My Business can drastically increase your chances of being found online and generating leads. Of course, simply having a listing is not enough – it needs to be 100% complete and optimized in order to land near the top of the local listing results.

Since it doesn’t cost anything to use it, you’re definitely missing out on a huge opportunity to gain more online exposure.

2. Helps Customers Find Your Physical Location

Using Google My Business, you can list the exact address and location of your business on a map. This ensures that searchers no longer need to rely on a paper map or scribbled instructions to find you; instead they can reach you through the precise directions.

3. Better Search Visibility

When you search on Google, you may have noticed a high-visibility panel near the top of the page (below paid ads and above organic results); it usually contains 3 local business listings and their information. These are populated with Google My Business listings. A complete and optimized listing can help your business land in this section. Furthermore, a simple click will direct your ‘searchers’ to the rest of your content, such as your website – or even a direct phone call to your establishment.

4. Displays Useful Information

Google My Business gives you a place to make important business updates that can be immediately seen by searchers. Useful, up-to-date information about your business will readily be displayed on your Google My Business listing; searchers can see your:

* Hours of operation
* Busy Periods
* Directions
* Photos
* The call now button displayed for mobile users
* Description of your business

Your listings will be as easy to access on tablets and smart phones as they are on desktops and laptops simply because Google is fully committed to the mobile revolution.

5. Another Communication Channel

You’ll be opening up another new interactive channel of communication with your potential and existing clients and customers by creating a Google My Business profile. Furthermore, it offers you another place to promote your promotions and special offers.

6. Hangout with Customers

Whether you are having a typical chatting session with your customers or are answering their most pressing questions, Google Hangouts is another great platform to connect with your customers.

Google Hangouts allows you to communicate with ten to fifteen customers at a time. This makes it a great way to engage customers and promote relationship with them. You can also use Google Hangouts to create instant-content that you can share on multiple channels.

Today, hosting a Hangout is easier than ever because you simply need to navigate to the bottom of your Google My Business dashboard and click on “Join a Hangout” for it.

7. Gain Customer Insight

The “Insights” tab in Google My Business offers you access to a wealth of analytics. The information you see is something you can customize. Also, you can simply pick the stats to compare and they will show up on a chart. You can then compare stats with “Insights”.

Visibility, engagement and audience are the three main sections. The visibility section shows the number of views that your profile, posts and photos are getting. Furthermore, you can change the data to show the last 7, 30 or 90 days report and have access to graphs.

The engagement section shows how your audience is interacting with your posts. +1 clicks, shares and comments is where you’ll see the stats. You can also view the results of the last 7, 30 or 90 days, as well as you can plot the graphs.

Finally, the audience section shows the breakdown of the people following you. Age groups, gender, and countries is what this breakdown shows.

You can improve your engagement and sales by using these statistics.

8. Track Website Traffic and Audience

You can use the Google analytic tool in Google My Business to get statistics on your website traffic and audience. Google Analytics is the master key to all the things related to analytics. While Insights looks at the traffic garnered on your Google My Business account, Analytics provides a more in-depth look at your website traffic.

9. Encourage and Actively Respond to Reviews

Your customers are going to leave reviews whether you love them or hate them; and most potential customers will decide whether to buy from you or not based on what people are saying about your business.

Therefore, making it as easy as possible for the customers to leave reviews is something you need to ensure. Fortunately, Google My Business allows you to easily do that. Customers can add their rating just by googling your name once you register yourself with Google My Business. You can also use your dashboard to monitor and respond to reviews.

A word of advice: It is important for you to encourage customers to leave reviews. You can do this by sending a feedback request email with a link to your Google My Business page. It is important that you don’t panic and respond in a professional manner in case you get a bad review. On the other hand, thank your customers for taking time to share their comments if you get positive reviews.

10. It Ties Everything Together

By simply logging into the centralized dashboard of Google My Business, you’ll find all the best Google tools ready for you to use. Google looks to harness the power of its tools suite to attract more to your business. This means that My Business closely ties in AdWords, Insights, Google+, Maps and Search. This makes managing your online presence much easier.
Conclusion

A unified interface, Google My Business looks to make life easier for local businesses by increasing their chances of being found through Google.

In order to find the right business to meet their needs, four out of every five consumers conduct local searches on search engines.

You can connect with your prospects on the other end of those searches by setting up and optimizing your Google My Business Listing. It is a totally free way to attract customers with this small investment of time. By using this tool, you can connect with your audience, increase your chances of being found, and generate more targeted traffic to your website or other places.

In this post I have briefed you about Google My Business and the benefits of using it to attract more local customers and clients. However, you may be left wondering if your listing is claimed. If it is, you may be wondering if it’s optimized. You also may be curious as to how well your listing ranks.

We specialize in creating detailed, specific local marketing for small businesses. We will also let you know exactly where you stand when it comes to local search engine optimization and your overall digital presence.

Businesses can access the Google My Business platform on their desktop computer or through an iOS or Android app from a mobile device. Google+ Local and Google Places were not compatible with mobile devices, so this is a major enhancement – making managing your local listing even more convenient.

If you don’t have the time to sign-up or maintain your profile on Google My Business, seek the help of a skilled professional that can ensure your listing is fully completed, claimed, and optimized.

As you know, most consumers today are going online to search for local products and services; so this is one of the most effective ways to put your brand right in front of these active leads.