Hey guys what’s up, it’s Pia and today I’m going to do a quick screencast on Google My Business, it’s super important for local businesses to get found online in local search and Google Maps and I don’t think the majority of business owners know the power of having a listing on Google My Business listings for Google, so I’m going to go over that and share my screen, so stay tuned.
Alrighty, so Google My Business is great for whether you have a brick and mortar company business or if you’re a home based business, so anyone can have a listing, it’s great for search engine optimization and being found locally as well as it’s great to be found in the maps and in Google Maps and Apple Maps.
So I’m going to run through how to start your directory listing and also some cool hidden treasures in here.
All you have to do is type in Google My Business or go to google.com/business and you come to this dashboard and you can start your listing right down here, they make it super easy, I already have a listing so I’m going to sign in and I have a couple notes here I wanted to make sure that I cover.
Again you don’t have to have a brick-and-mortar location if you’re a home-based business or a consultant you can definitely have this and let’s start with, let’s start with a couple of reasons why I highly recommend this for local businesses or even businesses that are from – have home-based businesses.
So first of all it’s free, right it’s a free listing, you don’t have to pay for it which is uncommon these days.
Second reason is that I’m going to look this up, Fingerprint Marketing, okay I think I have it here, oh here it is.
Okay second thing is that it shows up in maps, so I’m going to look up Fingerprint Marketing and check that out.
Oh this is brand-new you guys, this is kind of exciting, this is like a first time I’ve seen this.
So typically my listing will – well I have an ad running with Google AdWords but you don’t need that but typically my organic website will show up and then you’ll see some maps, so I’ll show up in the maps for Bellevue from my location but this is brand new.
So because I have Google on my business listing, this pops in right in the middle of the search which takes up a lot of visual real estate, so here’s another reason to have a listing on Google My Business.
Okay let’s get down to business
So if any of you guys remember Google Plus or Google Places, those are now just Google My Business, so if you have a listing here, you’ve covered all your bases, now we all know Google dominates search so another reason to be on here.
Having a listing on Google My Business is super important for mobile because a lot of mobile users are doing searches primarily for location-based queries, so another good reason to be on here and it doesn’t take that long to set up your listing.
Let’s see here what are the most important things your business…
Okay so we’re going to get down into the logistics, the three items that whenever you post your business on Yelp or TripAdvisor or any other listing platform is to make sure there are three things that are always the same, the first is your business name, so that’s the NAP, so that’s the N in NAP.
Your business name has to be listed the same on every directory because Google bot is going to be searching across all these directories and you want to make sure that they understand, it can quickly index your location.
The second is your address believe it or not, if you use the word Avenue spelled out you should be using it on all the listings Avenue spelled out okay.
And then the next one is phone number, so if you use dashes, use dashes, if you use periods between the three numbers, use periods so just consistency so that’s my first one.
My second one is to actually claim, stake your claim, on this directory a lot of business owners don’t do it and it’s huge, it’s totally huge for getting found locally.
Make sure your information is completed, a lot of times people will put their business on here and they don’t go through the whole profile, make sure the whole profile is filled out.
So you’ll see here I have my hours listed, I have my website listed, I have my categories listed, and then the other great thing is you can add photos so you can – which is huge because they stand out more, they’re more visual.
So we always add our portfolio images, we add some behind the scenes as you’ll see here and then let me go back, you can also – this is great – you can hire a Google authorized photographer to actually come in if you have a brick-and-mortar location and do a really cool virtual tour of your location and we have a lot of restaurant clients and they do that and it’s super important, it works really well for them especially if they’ve never been to your restaurant and they just want to kind of get a flavor for what it would be like to go there.
Okay what’s next?
Details, so you just click on edit here, there’s a ton of stuff to fill out, I just want to make sure you are filling it out completely, so the hours you can always change this, add special hours maybe for holidays, they actually have an appointment link here, so if it’s different than your actual website that is helpful adding phone numbers and that’s it, that’s all you need, it’s super simple okay.
Double check your opening hours, if you are a business that changes hours, make sure that you double-check your hours and download the app on your phone, I think it’ll be a lot easier because then you can keep that top of mind and you can make the changes pretty quickly.
Check your business images, okay we talked about images and keeping those fresh, you can upload, I don’t know if there’s a maximum, honestly I haven’t looked but you can continue to upload photos every time you change your listing, like updating a new photo or changing your hours, it triggers Google to go search your listing again, so which helps you get moved up in the search results.
Okay let’s talk about categories, so where are my categories, my categories are right here, so you can’t really pick your own, they have standard ones that pop up.
So unfortunately I wish you can type your own in but actually now that I think about it they probably are using terms that most people are searching for.
So disregard that comment but make sure that’s as specific as possible and there’s no order of importance.
So make sure you have categories listed let’s see what else here.
We talked about photos, we talked about that, make sure your logo is one of the pictures that you post.
Oh let’s talk about, let’s look at this dashboard here.
Reviews, how many of you guys asked your clients to review you on google?
Most people will think of Yelp or they’ll think of collecting testimonials for the website but remember Google is you’re hungry teenager who is constantly looking for content and will reward you by moving you up the search results.
So it’s really important to collect testimonials and reviews on Google.
It used to be on Google+ or Google Places, it’s now called Google My Business and what we do here at Fingerprint Marketing is we do it in a couple of different ways but we will say, “Hey, we have a listing on Google My Business, and as you know, as a small business owner getting good reviews are super important for the health of your business, would you mind reviewing us?”
And then I provide the exact link to where they can start posting, so they don’t have to search for our business, it’s just right there, they can do it on their phone.
And then if you have a really good relationship with that client and they sent you the review, you can then email back and say, “Hey, thank you so much for that review, if you have time could you copy and paste that review into Yelp or whatever director you want.”
You just kind of have to feel it out depending on what your client relationship is.
So here are the reviews and if you have a five-star review which is the most you can get, if you have a consistent five-star review, make sure that you put a badge in your footer of your website that shows you are a five-star service company because that is social proof.
Okay so a couple really cool things here that I wanted to show you that you might – I’m pretty positive it’s not on your radar.
Google My Business has an opportunity just like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to post content and what’s really cool about that is these show up in the search results and they take up a lot of space so people see them.
So these are posts that you can do weekly, I think they’re weekly, so they expire after one week which is fine, so you just go over here and you click posts and you just you can – I would definitely add a photo if you – here we get out of this, we get out of this – as you can see I’ve added photos to my posts it’s just like posting an article or an update.
I’ll show you some examples, I just started this because they just came out, so I posted an example of why it’s important to have a mobile friendly site and then I posted a, oh I posted a call-to-action so you can actually put a clickable link and call to action in this post and this goes to my consult page so people can set up a consult with me and we can talk about if their site is mobile friendly and how I might be able to help.
So that was published and then this one, it was simply telling my followers that we redesigned a website, we were really proud of it.
So the idea is people aren’t going to necessarily read this, who follow you elsewhere on other platforms but it helps you get better results in search when people are searching for what you do and it also, like I said, takes up some real estate in the search results so you get noticed above your competition.
And that’s what we’re all about here at Fingerprint Marketing, it’s helping you stand out and leave a unique fingerprint on your market.
This one was promoting my Facebook live about presentation tips and then again a call to action, learn more that goes directly to that Facebook live.
So there’s hundreds of different ideas that you can do here, okay so that’s brand new.
The other thing that’s new that is might be scary to some people is messaging, I know you guys have heard of Facebook messaging, met more people message companies now than they do actually post on Facebook in the world, there’s a lot of messaging going on and it shows you the sign of the times that people want answers now and you have to decide as a business owner what your boundaries are of course because you don’t want people messaging you at all hours of the day but you also have to realize that it’s a competitive world and the person that is there at the right time with the right answers and it’s with the right help is going to win the business.
We get most of our business because we pick up the phone and we answer our emails, so this is just a third way for people to contact me and yes this is a direct number that comes into me, you can create a new number and have that go to an assistant or a VA but messaging is super important, it’s going to be even more important in 2018 and beyond.
And you just have to decide whether you turn it on or off, so it’s simply turning it on and turning it off.
So you might want to try it and I actually have not had anyone message me yet but I imagine that it’s coming and then I also have a little automated message here, “Hi, we’d love to help you with your business website, what are the issues you’re having?”
Just so if I you know if I’m not able to respond right away.
That’s the second thing that’s new to Google My Business, the third thing, where to go, where to go?
And maybe this is not so new and I can’t show you because I’m on a PC, on Apple Maps you are able to answer questions.
I don’t believe they’re live but if people have a question about your business, they can actually ask it on Google Maps and then this is a great opportunity, it’s just like Yelp or TripAdvisor where – well not Yelp but TripAdvisor where you can answer questions about your property and then it’s on there forever, like the questions and answers are on there forever to help other people who are searching and might have the same questions.
Okay I think we covered it all, we covered a lot and again this is brand new so as you can see this takes up a lot of space and which is great for search because we’re trying to stand out in the search results and I wanted to show you, and you can see the pictures are pulling up here it’s got some pictures of outside my office.
It’s just – there’s so many cool – there’s a really no reason not to have a listing on Google My Business.
If you guys have other questions, I plan on doing more videos like this just focusing on one thing that you can do for your business to help you stand out from the competition.
I know there are tons of tools some of them are worth more than others and that’s kind of what I’m here for, your marketing crash test-dummy.
I’m happy to screw up and then tell you what I’ve learned but I have been using Google My Business for many years and I get a lot of traffic from it.
So hopefully you guys will take this way and if you know anyone who needs to hear this or needs to get their business on Google My Business, please share this video to them and go ahead and like and comment, show me some love and then I’ll know that you guys like this content and we can do more of these videos.
Okay you guys have a great day, bye.
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