There are many benefits to having an active, optimized and well-run Google Business Profile (GBP) listing for your business.
Having a GBP listing allows your business to appear in local search results, making it easier for customers to find your business when they search for products or services like yours in your area. This can help to increase the visibility of your business and attract potential customers.
Actively & accurately managing your GBP builds TRUST! With customers and with Google.
Keep these accurate to make the biggest impact:
- Name
- Address
- Phone Number
- Hours of Operation
Keeping these up-to-date can help improve the trust and credibility of your business.
Interacting with your community!
Interacting with customers by responding to reviews and answering questions, helps to improve the customer experience and build a positive reputation for your business.
Measuring Success
Your GBP listing provides a breakdown of your profile’s performance. These metrics will show you how customers are finding and interacting with your business on Google, which can help you to improve your online presence and marketing efforts.
Success Story!
The local SEO team at Maslow Creative started working with a client who was receiving an average of 5 calls per month from their GBP. Two months after our team started actively managing the profile, the GBP call volume increased by 400%! (25 calls per month)
What are the important factors to ranking my GBP above a competitor?
There are many important factors that can affect your business’s ranking on GBP compared to your competitors. These include:
- Relevance and accuracy of the information on your GBP listing
- The number and quality of customer reviews
- Your business’s physical location in relation to the person searching
- And the overall authority and trustworthiness of your website and online presence.
Relevance
To improve your ranking, you should make sure that the information on your listing is accurate and up-to-date, and that it includes relevant keywords that describe your business and the products or services you offer.
Reviews
You should also encourage customers to leave reviews on your GBP listing, and respond to both positive and negative reviews in a timely and professional manner. Timely, because Google tracks your response time and uses that in their ranking algorithm; judging credibility and communicativeness.
Physical Address
Location, location, location. Having an office or store front will allow your business to show up on Google Maps. When potential customers are searching for a product or service, the top GBP listings that will appear are the ones within a 3 mile radius. Strategically buying or leasing your business space in the center of where your customers live and work, means even more visibility.
Authority
And finally, you can work on improving the overall online presence and authority of your business by building high-quality external links to your website, and creating useful, relevant content that will attract and engage potential customers.
Stating the obvious here.
Having accurate information on whether you are open or closed, will help customers choose your business.
Ensuring that your hours are up-to-date can help to improve the trust and credibility of your business, which can encourage your customers to choose your business over competitors.
Forgetting to update your business hours, especially on or around the holidays can damage your business’s reputation and oftentimes lead to negative reviews. There is nothing more frustrating than arriving at a business that appears to be open on Google, but in fact is closed. Angry customers have been known to leave a negative review for far less.
The Importance of adding high quality images
By uploading photos that give a visual snapshot of your business (interior, exterior, team members, product, service photos), you can significantly improve your discoverability, your ranking, and your customer experience.
Photos don’t just mean more eyes on your profile. Having over 100 high quality images posted to your GBP can greatly increase:
- Call volume
- Website visits
- And direction requests
Did you know?
With all of these benefits, you can’t afford to not have quality images that represent your business!
So in Conclusion.
What are the benefits of having a well-run Google Business Profile?
- It builds customer loyalty, leading to repeat business
- It can make it easy for potential customers to discover your business
- And most importantly, it will help your business grow
As a business owner, the easiest, smartest thing you can do for your business, create a GBP & Manage it.
Google has created this free tool that is statistically proven to help grow your business.
