It's hard to imagine local SEO promotion without signing up for Google Maps. You can do it by yourself, the main thing is to know how.
You may have heard about Google My Business. But do you really know what is it and how does it work? Idea Digital Agency will tell you how to create a Google My Business account, set it up and use it to promote the company.
What is Google My Business
Google My Business is a tool that lets you add information about a company or its affiliates to a city map. The map, where the profiles of all companies are marked, is displayed on local queries as a special block above the search results. Users will be able to learn all the important information at once, as well as pave the route to the point marked on the map.
Google can target a user's location if geolocation is enabled. In this case, Google My Business cards will be displayed without specifying a city, or if the user adds the words "near," "near," and so on.
If the profile is filled in correctly and qualitatively, your business will get to the small list under a card, thus together with the name the specific snippet with the data will be deduced. With this bonus, SEO optimization of an online store or website with services will be even more successful.
Using the brand keyword, you can find a nice card of your company in a special block on the right.
What is Google My Business card consist of?
The card includes several blocks and elements that tell the user all the most important and necessary information.
A block of photos and videos of the company, its location on Google Maps and street panorama.
Block with address, open hours and work schedule, contacts.
Block with products.
A question and answer block where users can learn more about the business from its owner or representative.
Block with reviews from other resources.
Google user feedback block.
The organization's rating is formed based on user feedback and their ratings. The higher your rating and the more positive feedback your business has, the more trust it has to other users.
Google My Business Settings lets you promote some of your top priority services for free. Of course, it will not give the same effect as site promotion, but the benefit will be for sure. You can add announcements to your business card, for example, to let users know about a promotion or event.
The main question — how to set up a company in Google? We tell with all the details.
Also read in our blog: How to File a DMCA Takedown Complaint
How to set up a company in Google Business?
Registering a business with Google is a simple process, but it can be difficult for some users. For your convenience, we divide it into several steps.
Step 1: Create a Google Mailbox for your business
Skip this step if you already have a Google Account for your business. If not, create a new Google Account that will be associated with your business.
When creating an account (1), be sure to select To manage my business (2).
Step 2: Go to Google My Business
Once you've logged in to your Google Business Management account, go to https://www.google.com/business/. At the bottom of the page you can choose the country and language that is comfortable for you. Once you've determined your language, click the "Start" button in the upper right corner.
Step 3. Enter the company name and address
You need to use the current address. By this address customers will look for your company on Google Maps.
Step 4. Indicate the service area and type of activity
You can list the regions to which delivery of your products is possible or select "Delivery" within the company radius.
After selecting the service area, go to the next point. There you need to select the type of company. Here it is important to choose a category as close as possible to your activity — the further set of settings will depend on your choice. For example, for a cafe or pizzeria in the next steps you can choose the services available in the institution (for example, the presence of a summer terrace, WI-FI for guests, etc.).
Step 5. Add a phone number and website
It's important to add the number you have access to, because if you choose to verify your account by phone number in the next step, that's where the code will come to.
If you've created a business card before, but it doesn't appear on Google, you can check for information about your company or GMB affiliates — you can search Google My Business through the Details section of your account.
Google My Business Site Verification
We've outlined all the steps required to create a Google Account and register a business above. But its registration still needs to be confirmed. There are four of possible confirmation options:
By phone number.
Using a physical letter with a PIN code.
By email.
Using webmaster tools.
The system will automatically select the confirmation option for you. If this is a confirmation by phone — you are the lucky one. This means that you can immediately verify your account by entering the code that will come to the previously specified number.
Practice shows that the most likely option is confirmation with a physical letter, which will indicate a special PIN code. It will arrive at the address you provided earlier within 13 days. It is very important: do not make any changes to your business data before receiving the letter. Otherwise, the letter will become invalid.
What to do if the letter did not come
You may encounter frequent complaints from business owners online — "Google Business Verification Code Not Coming". What can this be related to:
The data was entered with an error or violation during account registration. If everything is entered correctly, you will receive an email stating that a physical email has been sent to your address. If nothing came to the post office — check the data you have entered.
There are extra words in the name of the company. For example, if our company's card said "Idea Digital Agency" or "Order Internet services from Idea Digital Agency", the system might think it was spam and would not agree to such registration further. Even more: for this you can get a ban, the removal of which can take a long time. By the way, special characters ("", * and others) are forbidden for using.
You have entered an incorrect address and index. Unfortunately, due to inattention, you can incorrectly specify the house or street number, use the wrong index. Therefore, it is important to check the data very carefully when filling in the appropriate fields. Otherwise, you may not get your letter.
Our success story: check our case of SEO promotion for Advanced Communities — developer of Experience Cloud-based software products for Salesforce.
Configure the main sections
Now let's see how to customize Google Business.
Posts
With this section you can add promotions, events, products, services, company news. Once added, the entry block will appear on the Google Business tab.
Information
This block contains all the information about your business: contact information, office address, website, work schedule and other attributes, such as prices.
Statistics
This section will only be available after checking your account. Here you can see exactly how users find your company — by address or by category, as well as details by search time, calls, number of photo views.
Reviews
In this section users can write reviews about your company. How to leave feedback on Google Business — it is enough to have a personal Google Account. Going to the Feedback block, click the Write Review button and the corresponding form will open in front of you.
Positive reviews increase your rating, negative, respectively, decrease. Work with the negative — respond to the comments of your customers to eliminate bad moments and reach a compromise. Also respond to positive feedback — it increases the level of trust.
Website
By creating a business card in Google My Business, you can also create a simple business-card site for it, if you do not have your company's site yet. The data you entered during registration will be transferred to the business card automatically.
Affiliate
To add an affiliate to Google Business, you must go through the same steps as when you first registered your business.
Delete account
If you need to delete a company in Google My Business, go to the Affiliates section of your account, select all addresses, and click the "Delete" button. Confirm the action, if necessary, log back in to your account. After that, a warning will appear, read it, and click the "Delete Account" button.
Benefits of using Google My Business
Signing up for Google Business gives you a number of benefits. First of all, this way you increase the visibility of your business for users. This will be a big plus for those niches where customer attendance is important: restaurants, cafes, salons, shops, clinics, dentistry, hotels and more.
Another obvious advantage of signing up for Google My Business is the ability to get more attractive contextual advertising.
The main advantage of Google My Business is free placement of the company without hidden surcharges. Therefore, if you are just thinking about registering for GMB or not, we will say — yes, register.
If you still have questions about how it all works, check Q&A page on the official GMB site.
To summarize. The main advantages of GMB:
local promotion — appearing on Google Maps — is a huge plus for your business;
additional links to the site — the GMB card works as an extended snippet, attracting more attention of users;
increase brand awareness — users see the name, logo, website address, and can remember it;
this is the best way to increase the level of trust — because of reviews, question and answer block, rating of the company.
