Google My Business is a great tool to bring your business to the forefront of Google Maps. Nowadays most of us try to find products and services by Google search.
If your business is not on the Internet, it is almost dead. Every day 4 million people search the Internet for finding various products, and if you are not on the Internet you are leaving the money on the table.
Almost every big brick and mortar business today is online today because they know how important it is to have an online presence, and that is one of the major reasons all social media platforms are gaining so much importance. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedin are more of a business tool than just entertainment platforms.
You will easily find these businesses on Google Maps with the help of Google My Business.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business(GMB) is created mainly for business owners by Google itself. GMB gives more control to business owners as to what shows up, when one searches for their business.
One can create a new profile or claiming an old auto-generated listing on Google. the best part of the GMB listing is that it appears on Google Maps.
Apart from this, it has many great features like you can edit your business information like open hours, address, phone number, and photos. Google also offers a free website to each GMB account holder.
Google My Business has a great feature of allowing your customers to leave a review or feedback about your services. This can hugely impact the success of any business.
You can also post, add photos and videos to GMB listing, you will also be able to get the insights of your business through its reports. Let’s discuss some of the reasons why you need Google My Business.
7 Reasons Why You Must Have a Google My Business
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Show Up In Google Maps
One of the major reasons you must have GMB, is your business shows up in the Google Maps which means apart from local searches you will be visible to 4 million daily users of the Internet. Once your business is listed through GMB, your business will be on the Internet 24×7, from any part of the world. It can hugely increase your opportunities for getting more leads, be it a call, an appointment or a direct sale.
Google My Business simply means more Customers, more business.
2. Earn Trust From Customers
Trust is the most important factor for any business, brick, and mortar or online business. Having an online presence and Google listing boosts the trust level with your business.
Your customer can find you and your business through these listings, people always wanted to know about the business with whom they are going to deal, or buy. With GMB, you are more transparent about your business and how it works. Also, it has all the important information about your business like address, phone number, website, working hours, which built trust in the audience.
When they get enough honest information about your business, they feel more comfortable to take the necessary actions to deal with you.
3. Star Ratings Boost Your Appeal
Google My Business has a great feature where your customers can leave reviews and give star ratings to your product or services.
People always trust reviews more than any advertisement. You can spend on your advertisement, but the honest reviews and star ratings can do more good for your business than anything else.
If you have good reviews on your Google listing it will show up in the searches, and that is one of the reasons people search for different products and services so that they can get the real opinion of the real people.
But with a business which has a negative review, people naturally avoid to visit that place or buy from that particular business.
So if you already listed your business on GMB, encourage your happy customers to give you a 5 or 4-star rating on the GMB.
More Stars = More Trust, More Business
4. Rank Higher in Results
Star ratings have an added benefit to your business when you have more positive ratings and star ratings on your listing you will easily rank higher in the search results.
When people search for a product or service on the Internet, Google tendss to show up the best results for your query, which includes services with the highest star ratings reviews.
Apart from many other factors of SEO, the number of good ratings of your business can help you to rank top in the search engines.
Obviously, people tend to buy or prefer services that rank higher on the search engines.
5. Increase Engagement
With GMB listing, you encourage engagement with your customers by replying to their reviews and answering their questions.
In GMB, Google gives everyone an opportunity to ask the questions regarding the listed business, if they have any.
This also encourages engagement with the people, which builds trust and a bond with your audience and customers.
Engagement and involvement with your customers show that you care for them and want to know their opinions about your product and services.
If you are a business owner having GMB listing, encourage your readers and customers to ask questions about your services, that way you get an opportunity to interact with them and build rapport.
6. Free Google Advertising
This is one of the amazing features of Google My Business. Once you listed your business on GMB, it will advertise your business on the Internet 24x7x365.
If you advertise on any of the traditional ways like a banner or local newspaper, and so on, it will cost you way more than GMB listing.
Secondly, these traditional ways of advertising generally for a very limited time, say a week or so, but GMB listing will be on the Internet for decades to come.
Google will never remove any GMB listing as it will help Google to give more appropriate and correct results to the searches by its users.
Again Google My Business offers you a website, which will be live by 24×7, again advertising your business for free. Yes, Google offers you a website that is totally free.
Though I would not recommend going for a Google website as it is very basic, not suitable for a full-fledged business. But if you are starting out with Google My Business, Google free website is a good option.
Google free website is more focused towards local businesses, so it provides all the information about your local address, phone number, area of service, working hours and so on. You will not be able to add any other pages to your Google free website.
What’s better for your business that Google itself advertises it.
Google My Business = Free 24×7 Advertising by Google.
7. Stand Out From Competitors
Google My Business gives you the opportunity to stand out from your competitors when you have all the updated information across the Internet.
GMB not only list your business on Google Map but also on popular local directories like yellow pages and so on.
When you list your business on GMB, all the local directories pull the business data from GMB itself, so you have a business presence across the Internet.
Apart from this your own SEO through which you are listing your business always tries to rank you higher in the search engines against your competitors, which again helps your business tremendously.
Your SEO not only tries to rank you higher but also helps you by removing any negative ratings and any inappropriate comments against you, which may harm your reputation. It definitely gives you a lead over your competitors.
Recommended Read:
Importance of Reviews For Local Business
Core Metrics Of Ranking A Local Business
Conclusion
A simple step of listing your business on Google My Business will give your business immense visibility and recognition.
If you have a business, even if you are just starting out, the first and foremost step you should take to promote your business is to list your business on Google My Business.
Google My Business has some amazing features like adding your contact no, address, reviews, and star ratings which will show up on Google Map, which gives any business a huge opportunity for expansion.
Apart from showing up in Google Maps, how amazing is that Google itself advertises your business 24x7x365.
When Google itself promotes a business by ranking it higher in searches, people inherently trust that business. That too for an unlimited period time. once your business is on GMB, it stays on there for an unlimited time. But it is also important to keep all the business information updated to rank it better on Google.
Advertising in traditional ways like local newspapers and magazines cost you way more than listing on Google My Business.
GMB builds trust among people by boosting your listing if you have more positive reviews, good feedback, and engagement level with your customers.
It is important to have an established Google My Business profile for so many reasons. If you need help setting it up, give us a call and we can walk you through it or do it for you.