It’s a Friday night and you’re looking for a local restaurant to spend your hard-earned cash on. You’ve typed in ‘restaurants near me’ in the search bar, and are now scrolling through the endless lists of food places that have just popped up. You read through the reviews and look through the images, and found a restaurant close by that offers mouth-watering Italian food at a price that does not break the bank. This is the power of a Google My Business profile. 

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business, also known as Google Business Profile, is a powerful marketing tool used by millions of businesses worldwide to give their business a boost in online presence. While you may already have a GMB account, many business owners leave it to pile dust. Many business owners aren’t aware that GMB is a free way to reach a much wider audience and attract new customers, especially if you’re a local business. Take the Italian restaurant example I mentioned above. There’s a high possibility that if that restaurant didn’t have a GMB account, they would’ve lost out on a potential customer. I know what you’re thinking. ‘So what? It’s only one customer. It’s one customer who recommended you to their friends, family, and colleagues, who then recommended you to their friends, family, and colleagues, thus creating a chain reaction. The possibilities are truly endless with GMB, and leveraging this tool can be one of the most effective ways to grow your business organically. Plus it’s free, allowing you to create and manage your profile at no extra cost. 

Benefits of Google My Business:

• Increase online presence: As mentioned, GMB offers a great opportunity for businesses of all sizes to appear in Google search results and improve your local SEO. You’ll also have the chance to place your business on Google Maps when users are searching for products or services related to your business.
• Build a community through online engagement: There are many archetypes when it comes to categorising your audience. Two of the most common ones are those within your community and those who observe from the sidelines. When a person engages and interacts with your brand, they become part of your community and a core part of the success of your business. On the other hand, those who observe from the sidelines, are a part of your audience who are interested in your brand, industry, or service, but won’t really engage with you. This could be due to a number of reasons, the main one being, they’re currently testing the waters. They’re seeing if your business is a right fit for them, and trying to get a feel of your brand. GMB is a great way for these sideliners to turn into dedicated and engaged followers of your brand due to the many features available. From reviews and ratings to the messaging tool where you can respond to customers in real-time, you have a new avenue to really nurture and build a relationship with your audience.
• Reporting: Want to know if Google My Business is even working for you? GMB provides in-depth data and reports where you can track the way users have interacted with your brands. Some of the main analytics you want to keep an eye out on are the number of calls made from your business profile, the number of website clicks, and if you’re a business with a physical location, then the direction requests can be a useful analytic. This reporting can provide you with a good insight into whether it’s working for your business and can help you decide if you need to allocate more resources to it.
• Posts, photos, and videos: Almost like a social media platform, GMB allows you to post images, and photos, and create posts, to showcase products and services. The posts feature is a good way to share updates, promotions, events, etc, directly to your Google profile. This then helps to ensure your local community is seeing these posts, and thus remaining informed about you and your business. 
• Competitive advantage: One of the main reasons to use GMB, is because there’s a high chance that many of your competitors just aren’t. They’re either not optimising their content, haven’t changed their contact information since they first set up, or don’t even have a profile even set up. This is your chance to shine. By spending time and resources on GMB, you’re able to gain a competitive advantage and are able to get more eyes on your business.

How to set up your GMB profile:

1. Sign in to the Google Account you’d like to set the profile on and go to create a profile. 
2. Fill in the relevant information about your business. This will include the Business name, category, location, phone number, website URL, etc. Once you have entered your business information, click ‘Finish’
3. You will then be prompted to verify. While you do have the option to verify later, I would recommend verifying your profile straight away, to ensure you have full control over your business and can make changes to any of the information showcased. If you don’t claim your profile, you run the risk of hackers claiming your profile and posting content and information that could completely ruin the reputation of your business. 

How to optimise your GMB profile to increase brand awareness:

1. Ask for customer reviews:

If I went onto a random business’ GMB profile and saw they had no reviews, I would be thinking of two things. Either they’re a brand new business that’s just opened. Or they aren’t nurturing a relationship with their customers. Encourage customers to leave reviews on your profile, to showcase how they felt about your product, brand, or service. It’ll help to give new potential customers an idea of what they can expect and also humanises your brand a lot more. When replying to the reviews, it gives people an idea of how you interact with your customers, which is why it is critical to maintain professionalism. 

2. Post quality content:

Posting quality content that is relevant to your business, makes a world of a difference. It is a great tool to promote your products and provides potential customers with essential information about your business. These posts can be used to entice customers to click on your site and check out your latest offers, events, and products. Combine your high-quality posts with informative and keyword-rich captions and you’ve got a post ready to be viewed by thousands.

3. Add as Much Information as Possible:

Make sure to complete every section of your Google My Business profile. While it may seem tedious to add all your business information, it is a good way to improve the overall performance of your profile. Adding your business name, address, phone number, website URL, opening hours, and a business description will help provide customers with information about what you do, the services you offer, and also the relevant contact information so they’re available on the different avenues of getting in touch with your business.

4. Choose the right category:

GMB categories are a lot more impactful than you think, and choosing the right category will really help boost the level of impressions your business profile gets. When setting up a GMB account, you have the option of setting up 1 primary category and up to 9 additional business categories. Choosing the right category helps Google understand what your business offers and ensures you appear in the relevant search results. It also helps to keep you competitive by choosing categories that your competitors are choosing.