Setting up a Google My Business page is like handing your résumé to an employer you want to hire you. Without the résumé, the employer will have to dig through your social media accounts and call and email your contacts and previous employers to find out what they want to know about you. They can do all that, but it’s much more time consuming than just looking at your résumé.
By the same token, Google can crawl your website to find out what you’re all about, but setting up a Google My Business page makes their job much easier. That makes it an incredibly important step for optimizing your website for Google’s search engine. If someone searches for your business by name, your Google My Business page will pop up at the top and they’re more likely to click on that than anything else because it’s big and prominently displayed at the top of Google’s first page.
Likewise, any information about the business that’s included in the Google My Business page can appear in a Google search, and will likely appear more prominently than your own website’s listing because Google will give preferential treatment to its own content over a link to another page. This is why it’s so important to set up a Google My Business account.
That said, just like SEO is not something you can set and forget, neither is your Google My Business page. You need to consistently update it (even if nothing changes) in order to get results. I’ve even talked to clients who set up Google My Business and then neglected it to the point that their page disappeared, even though their business was still active.
No one wants to waste time, so rather than letting you waste time setting up a page that won’t get the results you need, let’s look at the Google My Business Optimization checklist I use to help my clients create a page that drives high-quality leads to their websites.
Table of Contents
Set Up
While setting up your Google My Business page is not the last thing you need to do to make sure it drives results, it is the first thing you need to do, so let’s start by going over everything that needs to be done in the set-up phase to make sure your Google My Business page gets results for your business.
Google Yourself
Unless your business is brand new, your first step should be to do a Google search of your business to make sure you don’t already have a Google My Business page. For example, if you set up an account for your business on Google+ way back when that was a thing, Google might have automatically generated a Google My Business page for you, so start by establishing whether your company already has a Google My Business page.
Name Your Page
Once you’ve established that your company does not have a Google My Business page, you need to set one up and start with the name of your business. Don’t try to get fancy or clever with it. Just put your company’s name as it appears on your business cards. If people are searching for your business by name, that’s the search term they’ll use.
Your Category
Next, you need to choose your business category. This is crucial because people searching for your products/services who are not already aware of your brand are going to search for your category or use search terms that are commonly used to look for businesses in your category. If you want to show up in those searches, you need to make sure your Google My Business page has the right category selected.
Location, Location, Location
If you work out of your home and you don’t want your home address publicly listed, you still have to give Google the address of your business, but you can set it up so that it’s not shown publicly.
However, if you’re trying to improve your local SEO (showing up in searches where people are looking for what you provide in a certain geographical area), you absolutely need to make your address public. Hopefully, that means you have a brick-and-mortar store, or an office that’s not your home that you can list.
Service Areas
If your company is a service-based business without a physical address, be sure to select the service area(s) that are relevant to your business so you can rank in all those searches.
Contact Information
Your Google My Business page doesn’t do any good if people don’t know how to reach you, so make it easy for them by providing as much contact information as you feel comfortable providing. At the very least, it should include a link to your website so people can easily get there from Google.
You should also include a phone number if you feel comfortable doing so. If your cell phone is also your business phone, you can use a free service, such as Google Voice, to get a different phone number to list online. When people call that number, it will forward to your cell phone so you won’t miss any prospects who found you through your Google My Business page.
Verify Your Google My Business Page
Google will want to make sure you are a real person capable of representing the business, so it will send a card to you via snail mail to the business address you provide, which could take up to five business days. The postcard will have a verification code on it that you’ll need in order to complete setting up your Google My Business page.
Google My Business Optimization Checklist
When you go to publish your Google My Business page, Google will take you through a series of listing details and at the end it will tell you how complete your page is. If anything is missing, you’ll want to take care of that right away because the more information Google has on your business, the better it can match you with the people who are looking for you.
Use Relevant Keywords
Since your Google My Business page will show up in searches related to your business, it’s important to include relevant keywords so you can rank in those searches. Don’t stuff your page with keywords to the point where the content doesn’t make any sense. Instead, be intentional about choosing your keywords.
Update Your Operating Hours
People want to know when you’re open, so before you publish your Google My Business page, you’ll want to make sure you include your operating hours and make sure they’re accurate. If anything changes (including holidays) make the appropriate updates to your page.
Google will usually email you when a holiday is coming up to confirm your hours for the holiday, which makes it easy to keep up with this part of your Google My Business Page. Just make sure your settings allow Google to email you those reminders.
Include Photos
Listings with images are much more compelling (and get a much higher click-through rate) than listings without images, so be sure to include photos in your Google My Business page. At the very least, you should include your logo and a picture of yourself if you’re a solopreneur. If you have a team of people working for you, show off your team. The only thing we love more than seeing pictures is seeing pictures of real people, so include those on your page whenever possible.
In addition to your logo, Google offers an option to provide a cover photo, which it automatically crops to fit a 16:9 aspect ratio. Your cover photo is a great opportunity to show off your team if you have one.
If you have a brick-and-mortar location, you can post interior photos of your store/office to give viewers an idea of the kind of experience they can expect to have when they visit your store.
Videos
Videos are even more popular than photos, especially if you’re trying to demonstrate how something works or explain a tricky process. People love seeing the people behind the business, and video is another great opportunity for you to provide that to anyone browsing your Google My Business page.
Reviews
Customer reviews are so important for convincing people who are on the fence to reach out and buy from you. They know you have an agenda behind everything you say about your business, but if someone just like them is raving about how you made their lives better, they’ll be much more likely to believe that person’s word over yours. This is why reviews and testimonials are so crucial for closing the deal.
Start by asking for reviews from happy customers. It is an unfortunate reality that people are most likely to leave a review after they’ve had a negative experience, and they don’t often think to leave a review after having a positive experience, and the result can quickly tank your overall rating. Get ahead of the game by asking happy customers for reviews so you can stock up on those stars before the wrong prospect (or a robot) comes along and tries to ruin it all by leaving a nasty review.
It is still important to respond to negative reviews when you get them because how you respond says everything about your company. If you lash out, everyone will be able to see it and it will reflect badly on you. If there’s an easy solution to the problem, such as a refund or a replacement, offer it as a comment to their review so everyone can see your response. If reaching a solution requires a more in-depth conversation, offer to take the conversation offline so you don’t get sucked into a public back and forth with someone looking for a fight.
Allow Prospects to Message You … and Be Responsive
In order to allow prospects to message you through your Google My Business page, you have to use the Google My Business app. Go to “Customers”, then “Messages”, then click “Turn on” to allow customers to send you messages through your Google My Business page.
It’s important to check your messages often so you can respond promptly any time you get a message. Definitely no longer than 24 hours, but the faster you respond, the better. A long time between a message and a response can mean the difference between turning a prospect into a customer and letting them wander off to find your more responsive competitor.
The good news is you can set up customized, automated messages to welcome prospects and customers, but that will only get you so far. Eventually they’ll have a question only you can answer, and you’ll need to respond ASAP.
Post from Your Google My Business Page
You can create local posts from your Google My Business page that will show up on Google. These are great for letting people know when you’re hosting an event, running a special promotion, or launching a new product/service.
As with any content you publish for your business, make sure the content of your Google posts is high quality, meaning there are no grammatical errors, typos, or false statements. Make sure they are respectful and inoffensive. Remember that posts made from your Google My Business page will show up on Google, so keep them PG because you never know who will be browsing/searching.
Take Advantage of Special Attributes
Google My Business allows you to list your business as black-owned or woman-owned, and since more people are prioritizing buying from those communities, take advantage of it by letting people know if your business is owned by a woman and/or a racial minority.
If your business is a restaurant, let people know whether you offer outdoor seating.
If you work in healthcare, let people know whether you offer your services online, or only in person. Also let them know how they can make an appointment with you.
Google is constantly adding new features and making updates to help its users get the information they want before they visit a website or make a trip out to a store or restaurant, so take advantage of each feature to give Google and its users more information about your business.
Use the Product Catalogue
If you’re a retailer selling physical products, take advantage of the product catalogue in Google My Business to showcase those products on Google. This way, anyone searching for a product you provide can find it directly on Google and move straight to buying it, which significantly increases their conversion rate.
Monitor Your Google My Business Insights
Google provides a lot of data around how many people are visiting your Google My Business page, who those people are, and how they’re finding you. Take a deep dive into that data on a regular basis to test your content and keywords to see what gets the best results.
Conclusion
I know I covered a lot of information in this blog post, so if you have any questions about your Google My Business optimization strategy, don’t hesitate to reach out, because I would love to walk you through it.
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