Setting up your Google My Business listing can be overwhelming if you have never done it before. The following will be a general overview. Remember detailed optimized completion is vitally important, you may elect to hire someone with experience to do this.
Here are the important points you want to make sure you do when you set up your Google My Business listing.
Name, Address and Phone number, (NAP)
Make sure that you have the exact address, you cannot use a P.O. Box, it must be the physical address of the business. If you have a store, (brick and mortar store), you want to click the box that ‘you serve customers at your location’. If you are a service and you don’t have a store front, you want to click ‘you serve the customer at their location’. When you choose that option, you have two choices. One is, you can serve your customers by ‘zip code’. Some countries don’t have zip or postal codes. The other choice is by ‘city’.
Category
Select your primary category. Select additional appropriate business categories. These would be categories that are most closely related to the scope of business you carry out.
Website
Here is where you can add your website if you have one. If you don’t have a website, use the GMB website that Google gives you. (We strongly recommend using the GMB website). If a company correctly utilizes the GMB services and procedures, they are able to come out of the shadows and into the light of discovery, and with a little diligence stay there.
Appointment URL
This link is a destination URL that will lead to an appointment scheduler, an easy to use interface, complete with time and date. Your new customer can request an appointment that will work for both you and them.
Hours of Operation
When completing the business profile, it is key to input your Hours of Operation, (which includes the days of the week that you are open). Don’t make the mistake of indicating you are open on Saturday or Sunday when in fact you are only open Monday thru Friday.
Inaccurate information will result in frustrated customers, who have driven to your location based upon, “Google said you were open today.” They are most likely to go to another business rather than wait for the next time you are open.
You must be a responsible and responsive business person. If your GMB says you are open and there is no answer to a phone call, it is perceived as; not that he is busy, but that it is a poorly run business and not worth doing business with. We advise our clients to at least forward their phone calls so they capture the leads and information Google can supply.
Products and Services
It’s a great way to add additional product and or service relevancy to your GMB listing. You can optimize each individual product or service that you have. You can add a price and a description for each product or service. Anybody searching for those specifics will find your services. Your GMB is going to be shown first and Google is going to show it to people searching close to you.
For instance, if you are a nail salon and offer pedicures, manicures, nail painting, nail sales, nail polish for sale, hair products, foot massages, foot massage products, foot vibrators, and babysitting for customer’s children while getting their nails done, each of these services can be listed. If someone is searching for a foot vibrator, YOUR business will be found first. If someone wants their nails done, the added service of babysitting will increase interest in the listing.
Photos
Adding a company logo and other photos of your business is a must. If you know how to optimize them with your business info and geo location, then be sure to do it. If not, have an expert do it for you, it’s usually inexpensive to have done. It is the little things that keep putting you on top of searches. Use optimized JPEG photo files This allows Google to make the connection to your Brand/business.
Google reads the meta data embedded in your photo and learns that this is your brand/business.
Your business photos will rank, and Google will correlate your business with your images. Another tip is: make sure the geo location is “on” on your phone and take photos of your business, then upload the images to your listing. Since Google knows where you are, the geo location is embedded in the meta data of the photo.
Google keeps track of you at all times and will make the connection to your business and your brand. Don’t waste your time on an internet guru who says, “I can do that.” Ask your prospect expert to show you a GBM page that they have done and how their images are optimized. If they can’t show you the meta data on any photo of yours, run don’t walk away.
SMS Messaging
You can also add in the text messaging function, ‘SMS function.’ SMS stands for Short Message Service and is also commonly referred to as a ‘text message.’ With a SMS, you can send a message of up to 160 characters to another device.
Most cell phones support this type of text messaging. This is great for service type businesses, say like a plumber, if you are in the middle of a service call, and someone calls for your service, (and you are obviously busy) they can text you to call them when you are available.