Are You Making The Most Out Of Your Google Business Listing?

Google My Business is a great way to get local visibility in Google search and can be a great driver for your business. But are you making full use of it? There are plenty of guides out there on how to set up your listing, such as this one from Google.

Here we aim to talk you through all the different areas once the account has been set up in order to help you make the most out of it.

Basic Info

One of the most important things to make sure is right and accurate is your business information, found on the “Info” tab. Here you can update your business name, make sure your address is correct and add opening hours. We would highly recommend adding as much relevant information to your business as possible.

One of the most important elements is the business categories. These can help determine what kind of searches you show for and getting your primary category right is vital. If you’re unsure what you should select it might be worth researching other similar businesses in order to see what category they are using.

Photos & Media

Photos and other media can be used to enhance your business listing, giving you a professional look and helping potential customers understand exactly what your business is about. After all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here we look at the different image and media types which are available on Google My Business.

Cover Photo

This is your ‘preferred’ photo to be used on your business listings. Google suggests that it should showcase the personality of your business. If you run a service based business we would recommend this shows off the people working within your business. If a product led business then you might want to consider an action shot of your main product.

Video

Videos are often underlooked when looking at a Google business listing and can therefore set you apart from your competitors. We’d suggest a short ‘elevator pitch’ style video explaining what your product/services are and how they help your customers.

Logo

This should be your business logo and will be displayed next your business name when somebody searches specifically for your business. This helps give out a more professional feel.

Interior

As the name suggests, these photos should be of the inside of your workplace. This is a great way to show off your facilities and to give potential customers more information on what you’re about and gives some further proof that you’re a legitimate and well established business.

360 Interior

Further to standard images, you may want to consider a 360 tour of your interior. This will enable you to truly show off your business premises, however we’d only recommend it for businesses with larger premises where you can’t showcase it in 4-6 photos.

Exterior

Exteriors photos can be added also. We wouldn’t worry about these too much as Google will automatically add their street view as the exterior photo. It may however be useful if you’re moving into a building or changing the signage so that people can see an up to date version of your building.

Reviews

Reviews are one of the most important factors and can help improve your local rankings as well as providing social proof.

Click here to read our blog on getting more reviews.

Messaging

Something you may want to consider is opening up your business listing to receive messages. In order to do this you will need to download the Google My Business app on your phone. This will allow people to message you straight from your listing and you will be able to respond in real time.

This can be a great way to get your customers the information they need and maybe push them along your sales process.

Posts

The final thing you want to consider is posts. These will show on your listing as an update and can help show off what your business has been doing. It also shows that your business is currently active.

These can be great for showing off important updates (only one can be active at a time and last a week) and we would suggest that you look to integrate this with your social media plans.

You should now have an idea of how you can look at optimising your Google My Business listings. If you’re unsure on how to proceed you can get in touch and see how we can help you with your local SEO.