7 Different Ways To Optimize Your Google My Business Listing For 2021
Google My Business or GMB is a free tool used by organizations and businesses to manage their online presence across different search engines. For that reason, the GMB listing is essential to local companies to show up in Google maps and Search Engine Results Pages.
In addition, Google My Business has some added features that can enhance local companies’ GMB listing and helps increase their rank in local searches. So, if you want to take advantage of this updated tool, take your cue from these seven different ways to optimize your GMB listing this 2021.
Complete Your Business Profile Information
Creating a business profile with comprehensive, accurate, and updated information will be your first step to optimizing your GMB page. Therefore, you need to make sure to fill out all the necessary field to complete your Google My Business Listing including:
- Business name
- Phone number
- Address
- Website
- Category
- Description
- Working hours
- Questions and Answers
- Photos
- There may be some additional fields depending on your industry
When you’re done completing all the information that Google asks for, it will be much easier for the potential clients to find and contact your company for any transactions.
Additionally, if you’ll make your listing complete, you’ll have a bigger chance to be recognized by Google and rank you in the results page.
Post Relevant Content on Your Google Posts Section
Google Posts Section is one of the features of Google My Business Profile that allows you to engage with users directly in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s) and on Google Map.
Through this section, you can post anything related to your business such as your upcoming events, company announcements, blog articles, product promotions, holiday messages and so on.
Most people evaluate business online based on their recent posts. So that being said, you need to make sure that you’re only posting relevant, high quality, and useful content on your GMB account.
Choose a Specific and Relevant Category
Your category selection is essential and can help Google decide which searches does your local listing belongs to. You have to select from the list of available categories since you can’t create your own category.
However, if no specific category fits your business, you can choose a more general classification that accurately describes it. You should also regularly check the updated category option for new opportunities that may describe your business.
Upload High-resolution Photos
Certainly, image optimization is the most inexpensive way to get more mileage from your GMB listing. According to Google, business with images tends to get 42% more requests for directions to their whereabouts and 35% more clicks to their websites compared to those businesses without photos.
You can use high-quality images to give potential clients a glance of what they can expect from your business. For instance, you can add pictures of your business logo, sales team, office, and anything that can effectively showcase your business. Creating a 360-view interactive tour of your business for potential customers is also a plus.
Image specifications
Furthermore, you need to follow the recommended specifications when uploading photos to make sure that it will look best on your Google My Business listing. These includes:
- Photos should be In JPG or PNG format
- The size of the images should be in between 10 KB and 5 MB
- The minimum resolution of every photo should be 720 px tall and 720 px wide
- The images should be in high-quality and have no excessive use of filters and no significant alterations.
Use a Local Contact Number
Aside from keeping your contact number consistent among your various listings, it’s also essential to use a phone number with your local area code. With that, Google will detect that you’re absolutely local.
Furthermore, you need to make sure that the phone number you used for your GMB listing is also on your homepage or in any landing pages linked to your Google listing.
Monitor Your Google My Business Q & A section
The Google My Business Question and Answer section are one of the great features for local search on Google. In this section, potential customers may ask a significant question regarding your business, and you can answer those queries.
This feature allows you to hear directly from the customers so that you can respond to them immediately. However, if you failed to monitor this section and you’re not responding as a business, it may result in misinformation regarding your company or worse it can create a negative reputation.
Create FAQs lists
One of the essential things that you need to do to monitor your listing is to be proactive and create a FAQs list to preempt customer’s Google My Business Q and A’s. Your sales team should identify the queries that people often ask then include those Questions and Answers on your GMB listing.
Collect and Gather Google Reviews
Google reviews from customers are really influential. In fact, local business that has positive and conclusive reviews can gain more trust from their customers and tend to get more engagements to potential clients. In addition, online reviews can also influence search result rankings and click-through-rates.
With that said, you can collect and gather Google reviews to optimize your listing. Even if you have a great business, potential customers still want to dig in your review section for your credibility.
Encourage your customers
To collect online reviews, you can actively encourage your happy customers to give you a review on Google, or you may include an encouragement on advertising materials you put up in your store.
Moreover, responding to reviews especially the negative ones is also a good practice for your business. Just make sure to stay calm and keep your cool while dealing with unfounded and overly rude reviews.
Optimizing your Google My Business (GMB) listing is not a difficult thing to do. In fact, every change, big or small, can definitely have a positive effect on your Search Engine Optimization.
The ways stated above are just some of the techniques you can use to optimize your own GMB listing to enhance the online presence of your business.
