Google My Business: A Beginner’s Overview

“I don’t know, Google it.” We’ve all heard it! But do you know how much of an impact Google has on your business?

Google My Business can help any business.

Google My Business can help establish your small business regardless of if your business is new or if you’ve been in business for 50 years, which is one of the reasons we love it! There are so many features within Google My Business that all come together to create a powerhouse of an advertising and marketing tool. Let’s break it down!

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a free business tool that allows any size business to create a business profile where they can personalize the profile with photos, events, “social media” posts, and more to advertise their business and all for free. Think of Google My Business like a business listing you’d see on Yelp, or Bing Places.

This tool allows business, big or small, to have very powerful and free advertising at their fingertips. Google My Business allows the business owner to supply the customer with more access to the business by receiving updates and information all in one place.

A common misconception is that your business must have a storefront to make Google My Business worthwhile. The truth is you don’t! Even if you offer virtual services or don’t really attract foot traffic into your business, if you want to be found locally for the services you offer, you need to have a Google My Business profile and be active on it.

Why is it important for a business to have GMB presence?

In many cases, online business profiles are the first thing a person will see when searching for a business or service on Google. The profile contains your business’s hours, contact information, photos, and customer reviews.

When someone searches for a product or service on Google, they are looking for a company that looks trust-worthy. If there is no business profile, this can make your business look outdated, untrustworthy, or possibly non-existent. Many people use Google to find contact information and store hours. Google My Business allows you to update this information easily – especially for holiday hours.

In the last year or so, many businesses relied heavily on their Google My Business page to keep their customers updated on their operation hours and COVID-19 status. It is because of the pandemic that Google pushed out new features on GMB pages to allow for different types of business status’ like “Permanently Closed” and “Temporarily Closed.” They also pushed out a special notification feature that allows a business to post their most recent COVID-19 policies and mask restrictions.

What are the different ways you can add to GMB?

Posts: You can create posts about the most recent things happening within your business. This is very similar to what you could post on your Facebook or LinkedIn social pages. Posting to your Google My Business Profile can be used to provide updates within your business, promote events, or make general announcements. These posts will normally have a lifespan of about 1 week. Ideally, you’ll want to post about 2 times a week. A post normally includes an image or video, description, link, and a call to action.

Offers: When your business has sales or promotions, you can apply these to Google My Business. You’re required to add a title, start, and end times, and start and end dates. You can also add a photo or video, text description, coupon code, link, and even terms and conditions for your post.

Products: You can create product posts to sell items on Google My Business. Add a photo, product name, product category, price, description, and give customers the option to “buy” or “learn more.

Events: Promoting events at your business is another way to utilize Google My Business. Like “Offers” above, add a title, start, and end dates, and start and end times. Your business event will gain more attention as customers Google you!

Reviews: Claiming your Google My Business profile and being active on your profile also allows you to respond to your Google reviews – which you should always do! Good reviews or bad reviews, they all deserve a response. You can also snag a short URL to your Reviews section on your profile that you can share with your customers.

What are the best practices with GMB?

Complete your profile

Make sure your business profile is complete. Include your contact information, business hours, special hours (extended hours or unique days your business is closed). Most importantly, make sure your business description accurately describes your business, what you do, and what you offer. Include key words you want to be found for – that, my friend is SEO.

Start Publishing Posts

Begin posting to the business profile at least 2 times per week to ensure information is updated and relevant.

When creating posts, be sure to use keywords and highly searched terms in your copy. For example, if you are a small business selling handmade décor, you will want to include keywords like home décor, handmade décor, Michigan handmade décor, and so on. In doing this, Google will see these words being used frequently and your listing will be much more likely to be seen organically.

Did you get all that? 

It might be easy to read the above information, but the putting it into action is another story. The set-up and upkeep of Google My Business is time consuming when it’s done right. There’s a learning curve for most things in life, and marketing your business is no different!

Take a stab at Google My Business for yourself and see if it’s something manageable and enjoyable for you. If not, we are here to help! We offer a variety of options for your marketing, including training and virtual coordinator packages. If Google My Business isn’t for you, it’s for us to handle for you!