Google My Business is your Secret Weapon

Google My Business is your Secret Weapon

Welcome to episode 21 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento. In this episode,  we are going to talk about Google My Business and how it can change your business for the better.

If you are going to be on any social media platform, you only have to choose one; I would choose Google My Business because of the response rate and the amount of traffic that you would get from a Google My Business account versus a Facebook account and also considering the amount of effort that you have to put into those and how quickly your posts get buried in the news feeds, Google My business is the tool that you need. So I will dive into why you need to be using it first.

I want to explain what Google My Business is. It is a free listing that Google offers to businesses that serve a local audience or have a service for local audiences. So what that means is yes, you can work from home and have a Google My Business listing. So that is one of the biggest questions asked, and one of the biggest obstacles to why most business owners don’t have one is because they think it’s only for local businesses with a storefront.

That is not the case. This business listing can bring you thousands of views to your website or just your Google My Business page and get a lot more calls coming in and a lot more customers going to your website.

So it is an invaluable resource, and it is free. You would fill out your profile, make sure that you have everything filled out, and if you have a service-based business, you put your address in, verify it, and then hide your address. So you can only see where you live. No one has to know where your business is, but you can set your service area to multiple locations.

So it’s really important to claim it as soon as possible, because the sooner you claim it. The sooner you start updating and optimizing it, the more traction you’ll see and gradually increase the search results on Google. Google loves it when businesses take control of their Google My Business, update it, and ensure that everything is accurate regularly.

They will send you a little notification when a holiday is approaching, saying, “Hey, these are the hours we have for you on Labor Day, Christmas, New Year, or Thanksgiving. Are these accurate?” You can go in and change them to whatever is accurate.

Let’s say you’re going on vacation, and you know that you won’t have any appointments booked or anything like that during this certain period; you can go in and tell everyone you’re closed. So if someone searches your business and they go to schedule an appointment or something like that, during that timeframe, they will know that you’re not open, and that is a huge deal. 

There’s nothing worse than showing up to a business or calling a business, anticipating that they will be open, and then they’re not open. You should always update it regularly, keeping it tip-top in shape. You’re giving the public the best information about your business, which will build trust and let them know you care about them. You care about your business. So Google My Business can benefit you by driving traffic to your website and getting more eyes on your business and more recognition. 

They say it takes someone three times to have seen your brand to remember it. So the more people see your brand on local searches or in maps, the more they will be able to remember it, and it will stick in their heads more. If you don’t have your Google My Business, all you have to do is go to business.google.com, and you can create your Google My Business profile.

However, you should Google the name of your business first because sometimes Google will create a business listing for you, especially if it’s an actual store or local business, before you even touch it. So sometimes they’ll create it because they know there’s a location there.

If you Google your business and find one, there’s a little button that says “Claim my business” or “Do you own this business?”. So you’ll click there, and then you can claim that profile for your own. It will go through a little verification process, but that will allow you to get started. 

I manage about a dozen Google My Business profiles right now. I have created a very excellent standalone one-time service, Google My Business Optimization. So let’s say you just claimed your Google My Business. You’re still trying to figure out how to complete it to ensure it’s optimized. We will take that profile, ensure that everything is 100%, and ensure that your photos are geotagged.

So if you give us three photos, we will geotag those photos for you. So then that way, Google knows where those photos are taken. We’ll also make sure that your targeting is correct for you. We can set your service areas and define the service areas for you and make sure that those are all correct.

We will also include a success guide PDF, showing you exactly how to improve your profile every month. So that will include all of the best practices, everything you need to know to get that done and ensure that your profile stays optimized and that you’re correctly posting to Google My Business every month.

We also do Google My Business Management as a standalone service. Now that used only to be included in our SEO packages, but I see a need for it. I see so many businesses that need that, that don’t have it, and it will transform how you do business and your professionalism. The other thing I just remembered is, It’s a place for you to store your customer reviews.

So people trust Google more than they trust Facebook and Yelp. So if you have your reviews on Facebook or any of those places, it’s okay, but consolidating them onto Google My Business is a great idea. 

Google My Business will display your Facebook reviews on it as well. So it’s a great place to consolidate all of that. Now the Google My Business management service also includes optimizing your profile for free, which is if you commit to a six-month term, and it is just an excellent service. So that way, your Google My Business is getting posted regularly with accurate information, the best pictures, and the other GMB services we provide.

So if you have any questions whatsoever, you can always reach info@thedeterminedmom.com. So I am looking forward to working with all of you. Hopefully, you will be further ahead, six months then now; if you are claiming and optimizing and regularly posting to your Google My Business prof