This is a subject that sometimes confuses people. Google doesn’t always make your life easy when it comes to working out what you need to do, to be found properly in an online search.

There is an ocean full of ‘helpful’ articles and how-to guides of varying detail and quality on the topic. So, what is GMB and what can you do today to use it?

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. You may have, in the past, heard of Google Places or Google+ Local Business Pages – GMB replaces these two.

Your GMB Listing is one thing you can easily tidy up and it will help how your listing is viewed in a Google Search. It will also give you a place to store your online reviews.

What do you need to do?

STEP 1: VERIFY your business listing

You need to make sure you OWN the listing yourself (its possible that one exists and you don’t yet own it). We normally see three common situations with any new client we start working with:

1. No listing currently exists (so we need to create one from scratch).
2. A listing has been created (by Google) but it has not been claimed and/or verified.
3. A listing exists and has already been verified by someone (could be our client or someone else).

The first two scenarios are normally the easiest to manage as the setup and verification process is relatively straight forward.

The third scenario might involve having to claim the listing back from whomever currently owns it – this can sometimes take a couple of weeks or even more in some cases and involve conversations with Google.

STEP 2: Update the information

Once the business listing has been verified, you need to make sure that the information on there is up-to-date.

This may include:

• the correct name of business;
• business category;
• website;
• contact details;
• opening hours; and
• a short description.

Those are the absolute basic details that should be up-to-date and accurate.

STEP 3: Add these extras to polish it up

To take your GMB listing to the next level (if you have not done so already) I would recommend doing three additional things:

• Add photos and videos – Make sure you have a nice blend of images including: cover and profile pictures; product images (if applicable); people and employees; internal and external pictures of your business and more.
• Manage reviews – Start by looking through existing customer reviews and make sure you answer both positive and negative reviews in a personal and constructive manner. Then start encouraging existing customers to give you a review on Google. Make sure you make it as easy as possible for them to do so, for example by providing a link to the Google listing in an email.
• Create a post – Since the demise of Google+ it is becoming more evident that Google wants the GMB listing to take over part of that ‘social’ element. NOTE: A post on GMB only shows up for a limited period of time and can be useful to promote an event, product or promotion. Not many businesses are doing this at the moment, so this will make you stand out a bit more from the crowd.

There are many more things you can do to improve your Google My Business listing and your Google Search presence but hopefully the above has given you some practical things to work on in the meantime.

If you would like to schedule a FREE 30minute VoIP (Skype / Zoom) conversation about your online visibility as a local business – please click here to enquire about that.

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