With the availability of vaccines, warm weather, and stimulus checks, it’s time to update your Google My Business listing to increase your visibility when potential customers are looking for you locally.
Why Update?
Google has given local businesses more advantages when it comes to showing up in searches, especially over large corporations that don’t exist in your town. By updating, you’re utilizing the advantages that Google is trying to give to small businesses in local search.
What to Update?
A new feature that Google added (a year ago now) was a COVID-19 update, allowing business owners to share if they were open and if any rules were different. Utilize this space to give an update to your customers and reassure them that you are open.
Posts
You don’t need to invest in a full-time person creating posts here, just having something recent will be sufficient to show Google your profile is up-to-date.
Info
Make sure you have updated information in your info section and include everything you can fit into here about your business. More detail about “Services” below.
Insights
You can track how many people call you, look at your posts, and visit your website right from here. Utilize these metrics to improve your listing and bring more traffic.
New Services Available
The available services change from time to time and are one of the primary factors in the search keywords for the map. Start by finding a pre-defined main category that your business falls under, then add pre-defined services. After that, you can add custom services that your customers look for.
You can also add descriptions to the services and pricing. This makes it easy for a customer to view these things without entering your website to find out if your service is right for them.
Add Photos To Your Page
These will show up right on the search results page and will add to the depth of your profile. This is a great way to showcase products and services. Show a before and after or a portfolio of your work.
Ask For Reviews
There’s a specific formula for how many reviews you need to rank higher than a competitor, but I won’t bore you. The point is, get reviews. Google even gives you a link that you can e-mail to past and present customers for a review.
Thanks for reading the article and I hope your business gets more phone calls this week. I understand how tough it is for a business owner to be more visible in local searches. I’m available for web design and SEO services for small businesses.