How to optimize your Google My Business profile

Any business should be on Google My Business, as this is considered the platform where it is most important to have a presence if you want to have a good local SEO. It is a free tool that companies take advantage of to increase their online presence. Surely you have ever searched for a business on Google Maps, looked at its hours or read its reviews. That business appeared to you because it was registered on Google My Business. Below, we will give you a series of tips to optimize Google My Business that are included in their own guidelines to improve local positioning.

Provide all the information about your business: first step to optimize Google My Business

In order for customers to find you, the first step to optimize Google My Business is to provide all the information about your business correctly. To do this, we must add basic data such as the category in which we can frame the business, the name of the business, our address, opening hours and telephone.

It will also be essential that you add the type of business you have and the services you offer. Once you have provided your customers with the essential information they need to find you. It is time to give them additional information to get an idea of what your business is like and what makes it special.

Upload photos and videos of your business, the key to local SEO

Having graphic examples of what your business looks like is very important for the user, even more so when most businesses add photos and videos of what their business looks like. To optimize your Google My Business profile you should upload your own photos of the exterior, interior and the products we sell, we can also make use of the photos that customers themselves upload once they fill out a review about their experience in our establishment.

Something that not all businesses have included and is a very interesting feature is the virtual tour. The concept is the same as Street View. The user will be able to live, virtually, the experience of walking through your business.

Optimize descriptions

To optimize your Google My Business profile you will need to customize the description of your business, this will appear in the section called “from the owner” and is a long text that can be an extra contribution to your local positioning. Follow these tips:

• Stick to the maximum of 750 characters, but concentrate the keywords you want to position in the first 250 characters. Highlight what makes your business unique.
• The text must be consistent with the message your brand is trying to convey.
• Do not repeat information you have already added to other fields.

Google reviews: encourage and interact with them

Encouraging your customers to leave a review is a great way to optimize your Google My Business profile, as it is possible that the business with the best score is the one chosen by the customer, encourage them to do it physically and also do it from your website.

Responding to reviews will also be positive for your local positioning. According to Google itself, businesses that respond to reviews are considered 1.7 times more trustworthy by consumers.

Add information to products/services section

Knowing exactly what you offer is something your potential customers are sure to value. For example, if you have a hair salon and your customer is looking for Japanese straightening, it will help them a lot to know that you offer this service without having to call you.

Analyze statistics and keep your profile updated

Google My Business gives you a lot of information about how your profile is working. You will be able to see statistics such as the number of phone calls, the number of times people have asked for directions to your business and your positioning on Google Maps, among other factors. By analyzing the evolution of this data you can draw conclusions about what to do to optimize your Google My Business profile.

Keeping your profile updated is very important, if there has been any change in your phone, your services or anything else that your potential customers may consider important, it will be essential that you update it.

Publish content and activate the messaging option.

Publishing content will bring you closer to the customer, increasing your level of interaction with them and generating new leads due to the attraction of such content.

This is an option that gives users the opportunity to contact you directly and you to answer their questions instantly and potentially, having solved them, to assist your business. What are you waiting for to optimize your Google My Business and make it shine?