Table of Contents
If you are not optimizing your business for better rank through SEO, then you are missing out on a lot of potential customers. Almost every business is focusing on their on-page, off-page and technical SEO strategy to rank on the first page of Google. They are optimizing all the content within their website; however, most of the business usually miss out on one of the most critical entities, i.e. their Google my business listing.
Google My Business profile is a powerful way to dominate your presence on the digital platform. There are around billion searches performed on Google every day, and 46% of those Google searches are for local business. You may have already understood the impact Local SEO is making in the industry right now. If you think that every local business does have a listing on Google My Business, then you should know that 56% of local retailers have not claimed their Google My Business listing.
Google Local SEO helps you to appear at the top of the search engine result page (& in map-pack results). And how do you optimize your business for Local SEO? By Optimizing your “Google My Business Profile.” Today, we are going to talk about some of the essential optimizations that you need to do in your Google My Business profile in 2020 that will enhance your Local SEO strategy. Let’s first discuss “why you need to optimize your Google Business Profile?”
Why You should Optimize your Google My Business Profile
What are the benefits am I going to get after optimizing my Google business profile? We all need a strong reason before doing anything, don’t we? Especially when we are already busy with efforts in the other part of SEO, and someone comes and tells you to optimize this “new thing” as well. Here are some of the reasons why you should optimize your Google my business profile.
Boost Local Rank
The first reason is that it is going to boost your local rank. Having a Google My Business profile isn’t enough, if your business is not even ranking on the Google. What is the benefit of having a business listing, if people are not even able to find your business in popular local search terms?
By optimizing your Google My Business profile your rank will eventually increase in the map pack results.
Better Engagement
More people will start engaging with your content if it has been optimized well enough. Many people search for a query and quit without even clicking on any website because they get all the information on the search result pages themselves. Many people engage with Google Business profiles more than sites. Having your local business ranked on the top of the map pack results will give you much more engagement than having your website ranking on the first page of Google.
More Customers
Last but the most crucial reason why you should optimize your Google business profile is that you will be gaining more customers through it. Your sales and profits are simultaneously going to rise with your local rank.
A typical business profile doesn’t have to offer much to the customers. They will only be able to find you if they know your business name. However, with an optimized Google business profile, they can find your business from popular keyword searches, they can call you, visit your site, read about your product and your review, book an appointment and more.
Effective Ways Optimize your Google My Business
Now, you already know how having a well-optimized my business profile can help you gain success in your Local SEO. However, you must be thinking, how to set up a well-optimized business profile? How to effectively optimize your business profile? Here are some of the effective ways to optimize your Google My Business profile:
Complete your Profile Information
First and foremost, thing that you need to do is to complete your profile information. Many businesses do not fill all the information in their business profile. Completing all the section in your business profile does not only help you to rank in the local search results, but it also increases the actions that customers can take from your profile. There are many things information to fill, so here is a list of all the information that you “must” provide in your business profile:
- Business name
- Phone number
- Address
- Category
- Website
- Product and Services
- Working Hours
- Descriptions
- Questions and Answers
- Photos
There will be some additional fields depending upon the industry, make sure to fill that as well. After doing it, it makes it easier for your customers to know more about your business and approach you. Having a complete listing, increase your chances to rank in the search engine result page.
Choose Relevant Category
The selection of your category helps Google decide which searches does your listing belongs to and they start appearing in results for the relevant category.
According to a report, 84% of searches are discovery, while 16% are direct, which means only 16% of people type the business name or address to search for a local business. Most of the search comes while searching for a product or services.
The category selection is essential, and you should be very specific about your industry.
Add Photos
Google itself says that there are 42% more chances of customers to request driving direction to a business if its profile has photos, and 35% more likely to click through to its website.
You should always upload high-quality images to attract more potential clients on your business and make it clear through the photos that what they can expect from your company.
You can add pictures of your company’s logo, cover photo, sales team, 360-view tour of your business and more such photos. Avoid uploading stock or any other irrelevant images to your profile.
Answers every query in the Q&A section
Answering every question in the Q&A section shows that you actually care about your customer questions. Your potential customers may ask an important question related to your question; you answer could actually convert them into your customers.Those answers could also influence future potential buyers to purchase your product. Failing to monitor this section can have major consequences, as you would not even know what people are questioning and answering in that section. It may spread misinformation or harm the reputation of your business
Gather Google Reviews & Reply Them
Reviews are one of the most important parts of your business profile listing. You should always monitor them regularly. Reviews are highly influential and can help you gain the trust of the customers. Positive reviews can benefit your business in many ways; it can increase the CTR of your listing as well as eventually increase the sales of your business.
You should urge your customers to review your business on Google.
You should always reply to negative reviews and do not avoid them. It gives the wrong impression of your business. You should always take negative reviews sportingly and respond them positively; you can also ask them the suggestions on how can you improve your business?
Conclusion
Local SEO is often the most ignored part of SEO. People continually improve their website rank by SEO, but they forget about their business listing that can give them even better results. If used effectively, Local SEO can benefit your local business like no other thing in the world can.
We hope you have started optimizing your business profile with all the insights that you have got from this post. We recommend you to read the Google guidelines for representing your business on Google. If you are new to the SEO industry, then this guide is the bible for your local business.
Make sure to have your business Name, Address, Phone Number and other information same on every platform or it can confuse Google, and your business may get ranked down because of it.
