Using Google My Business to support digital marketing

Hello Google!

Digital marketing is often viewed as being very involved and complex, too complex for small businesses to manage, and therefor often overlooked or outsourced at great expense.  However, there are some very simple tools to help promote your online presence, easily managed by anyone with online access, and some of the best ones are even free of charge.

What is Google My Business

Take Google My Business, for example. We all use Google on a daily basis, in fact it is now very difficult to get through the day without using Google! We often use it in our personal life in ways we do not even think about.  However, Google also has several free tools that business can utilise to support any online marketing and improve its presence in online searches, such as Google My Business.  This free tool allows you to control and manage how your business appears on Google products, such as ‘Maps’ and ‘Search’, and is very easy and quick to set up.

Google My Business is particularly useful if your business requires people to find you or to visit a specific location, but can also be of use even without a physical location.  Google My Business has various ways of helping people find you.  We all use Google Maps without even thinking when we are looking for directions or a specific destination, and we have all seen that little red pin highlight the location we are seeking!  We also use the ‘search’ tool to find websites, locations, contact details, opening times and whatever else we might be looking for.  It is up to you, as a business owner, to ensure that your business can be found, that the little red pin lands on your location or your website comes high in the results of a search, and here’s how to do just that:

Setup Guidelines

First of all, type Google My Business into the search bar, and click on the Google.com link you find.  Google makes it very easy to add information and to claim your business, to ensure that you are the only one managing and editing the information.  Simply follow the steps given, and complete each section with as much detail and as accurately as you can.  Giving as much information as possible will help Google to correctly highlight your information or location when people search for a business like yours. Don’t forget contact details, physical location, opening hours, and pictures where relevant. And don’t forget that all this is completely free of charge.

Verify your Business  

You will be asked to ‘verify’ your business – this is worth the effort, as a verified business will come higher in searches, and is deemed to be more ‘reliable’.  Again, it is a simple process, and free of charge.  Google takes you through the process, step by step.

Reviews

Once you have your accurate business listing, customers will be able to leave reviews and comments.  Be sure to respond to these positively and accurately, and in a timely manner, as these will be seen by anyone who searches for your business.  Positive or negative reviewers should always be thanked for taking the time to leave their thoughts, and this should be followed by a solution to the problem, or an invitation to talk to you directly, and a way to reach you.  Responses should not be ‘canned’ and appear to be standardised, as this will reduce your credibility.  Be polite, personalise responses, and always be helpful.

Rankings

There is no way to pay for, or influence Google rankings.  Your business listing will be shown in searches that Google algorithms deem to be most accurate – how well your business description matches the search request, location – how close you are to the ‘search’, and prominence – how important your business is, how many people have interacted with it in the form of reviews, and so on.  The more information you provide in the Google listing, the more frequently you will find yourself at the top of the searches.  Google is also very smart – filling descriptions with irrelevant content just because it is full of key words will not help you!  Write content for real people to read, after all, it is the real people you are trying to attract, not the Google bots!

Maintain Control

One last thought for consideration: make a note of all the passwords and email addresses linked to your online information as you will surely need to refer to this at a later stage when you wish to update your details.  Also make sure that the email addresses used are managed by you, and not by someone you might have asked to perform these tasks for you – to lose access to the information you have carefully added and to have control of your online reputation in someone else’s hands is not something you wish to consider.