Google My Business is an easy and cost-effective way to make your business more discoverable both online and in real life.
There are several benefits to claiming a Google My Business listing:
Claiming your profile allows you to control the information that Google displays. If you don’t claim your listing, Google tries to provide the best information about your business, which isn’t always correct. By claiming your GMB profile, you can verify and edit all the information about your business as it appears on Google.
Without it, you don’t know what people are writing about you. A Google My Business profile also hosts customer reviews, and without claiming your GMB profile, you won’t be notified when someone submits a review of your business. By claiming the listing, you can monitor and respond to reviews.
GMB listings allow you to appear in a geographical search. Have you ever used a “near me” search on Google Maps? Using Google Maps is an increasingly common form of search for products and services in the cities and towns where consumers live and visit. Google Maps is incredibly skilled in finding business locations, and GMB listings are displayed prominently in a Google Maps search results. With over 70% of all searches going through Google, that’s several opportunities to attract new business.
Google reviews are necessary for today’s consumers. Reviews are an integral piece of Google’s algorithm. What that means is that business profiles with more reviews, especially more positive reviews, are favored in a Google Search and pushed higher up the search results food chain. Additionally, customers are becoming more reliant on third party sources in making a purchasing decision. Many of whom are so accustomed to the availability of product/service reviews, they require that level of verification from other consumers about their experience with your product or business before they trust you with their dollars.
Consumers want proof that a business is accountable to the expectations of their customers. That’s why it’s so important to utilize a platform that both captures and allows you to respond to customer reviews. Whether engaging with positive or negative reviews, it shows that your brand or business cares about your customers’ satisfaction – and that’s HUGE!
Increase your website SEO: By claiming your GMB profile (and the GMB counterparts at Bing and Yahoo), you’re adding quality web links that lead consumers back to your website called backlinks.
Backlinks from other highly-respected websites are the foundation for building trust in the eyes of search engines. These help boost your website’s search engine results page rank (SERP), or the position of your weblink among all the other results of a Google Search. For example, being positioned on page one of a Google search result instead of on page 245.
If you think your business could use an online boost, connect with us here and let’s start a conversation about how we can help.