Why should a business have a Google My Business account?
Introduction
Let’s be fair, these days there are quite simply a million and one things that a business can do to promote their company.
So, with that in mind business owners have to be given a pretty good reason to sign-up to a service.
Yet, with that said, we don’t think there’s an easier way to improve your businesses SEO than setting up a Google My Business account. Its super simple to do, plus you by doing this your business stands an increased chance of being displayed within the local business results.
This blog post is therefore dedicated to explaining what a Google My Business account can offer a business.
So, what exactly is a Google My Business account?
In a nutshell, by setting up a Google My Business account you are setting up an company profile that can then be displayed in the Google My Business results.
So, let’ say for example your looking to purchase a new pair of running shoes, and you are in a hurry to get these so your looking to purchase locally. If the business therefore has a Google My Business account, then the business can be displayed in the local business listings when a phrase is searched for that the business can offer.
So in this case it might be “shops that sell running trainers” or “a local shop that specialises in running shoes”.
Now, it’s worth keeping this in mind, Google normally only shows 3 local businesses in the local business listings, so competition for this space can be mighty fierce.
And the reason for this is that within city there may well be over 100 places that also sells running shoes for example, so as you can imagine, if there’s only three spaces where your business can be placed the competition will be fierce.
How can you optimise a Google My Business listing?
Normally an seo agency will be asked by a client to improve where the business ranks organically and also to help get the business get ranked in Google’s local business listings as well.
Here’s some of the information that we will add to a Google My Business listing in order to improve its chances of being ranked in the 3 business listings.
Ensure that the NAP information is consistent
Most digital marketing agencies would agree that its important that the businesses NAP information is consistent.
As well as being consistent the information should also be kept up to date.
So if you do not know what NAP means, well NAP simply means the name of your business, its address and phone number.
Seo companies use this information in order to improve a company’s local seo.
Business reviews
An important part of the local SEO process is to obtain business reviews from your customers.
However, for the reviews to help improve your businesses SEO they must also be real reviews.
So, what we mean by this is, do not write fake business reviews. The reason is Google and the other search engines algorithms have ways of spotting fake business reviews, and if your business does obtain fake business reviews, well it will stand a much lesser chance of being displayed in the Google My Business results.
So, the only business reviews that will help your business will be genuine business reviews from customers.
Make your Google My Business listing better than that of your competitors
Some of your competitors may have not added much in the way of company information to their Google My Business account.
If your competitors therefore have been a bit lazy, well this then presents your business with an opportunity. Your business could therefore create a more detailed Google My Business account.
For example, if you have photos of your shop front, or your team that you could add, well why not do this?
Also why not write a detailed business description, if your company profile has more information added to it well this can help to improve your businesses seo.
Keep your account up to date
So many businesses change addresses, or say their phone number from time to time, yet then forget to update their Google My Business account along the way.
So, in all that hustle and bustle of moving addresses, and sorting out new phone numbers, well it’s easy to forget to change your company address or phone number on your Google My Business account.
However, this can cause what is called a “conflicting citation”- this means that your website may say your business is based at one address, yet your Google My Business account may say that your business is based at another address.
Its important therefore to keep all accounts updated, as otherwise the algorithms can get confused as to where your business actually is based.
Onsite SEO
When we’ve created a Google My Business account, we then normally move onto the businesses onsite seo.
So, we therefore recommend that your business works with a white hat seo company, that’s to see if improvements can be made to your businesses onsite seo as well.
How we can help
Many businesses pay an online marketing agency like ours, to improve their businesses SEO each month.
We therefore can implement organic and local seo for your business, if you would like to obtain a totally no obligation quote, then why not call us today?
