TOP 10 TIPS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE PAGE

If you want your business to be found online, optimizing your Google My Business profile is essential. By optimizing your profile, you can improve your chances of appearing in relevant search results and maps, which can help you attract new customers. We have compiled a list of our top ten favorite ways to optimize your google business profile page below! If you don’t have one yet though, just head over here first to set yours up

1. RESEARCH YOUR COMPETITION

See what they are doing to optimize their Google Business profiles and take note of what is working well for them. This is the key to any SEO strategy. Pay close attention to:

• Keywords they are targeting
• Categories they are listing their business in
• The photos they are using
• Reviews they are getting
• Offers they are promoting
• Types of posts they are sharing

2. MAKE SURE YOUR BUSINESS INFORMATION IS ACCURATE AND UP-TO-DATE

This includes your hours, contact information, business description, and more. You may need to update these for holidays for example or, if you are a business, you may need to update these for special events.

Google allows updates to be recommended on your google business profile by your customers or even competition so be sure to check your information in case your customers or competitors decide to make some sneaky edits that affect your business!

3. ADD PHOTOS AND VIDEOS TO YOUR PROFILE

Google allows you to add up to 10 photos and 1 video to your profile. Make sure you get photos of your interior work environment, the outside of your storefront, as well as some photos of your staff. These photos will add to the credibility and legitimacy of your business and will give your customers a better idea of what your business is all about.

If you are a business owner, you should consider hiring a professional photographer to take photos of your business. This will ensure that your photos are of high quality and that they will be able to be used in marketing and advertising materials and represent your business well to any potential customers. You can also use google approved professional photographers!

4. USE KEYWORDS IN YOUR BUSINESS DESCRIPTION

When potential customers search for your business, these keywords will help your profile show up in the search results. For example, if you have a plumbing business you could use words like “plumber” or “plumbing”

Keywords could be both geographic in nature or topical and they can both help you towards being able to develop an increase in rankings and optimize your google business profile page. We do caution you though, not to stuff keywords into your business name unless you legitimately have those words as part of your official business name. This is a huge factor that oftentimes leads to business profile page suspensions.

5. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE POSTS

These posts appear at the top of your profile and allow you to share updates, special offers, and more with your potential customers. Proper posting strategies can also make a huge difference in helping google establish your credibility. For example, we always create page-specific posts linked to our customer’s website pages and keep them updated regularly.

You can then use these pages to build links to your website with more advanced strategies to increase the amount of power you put behind the ‘connection” to your website. Posts are one of the most effective ways to use the google business profile if you have a well-planned SEO strategy behind them. Posting regularly is great, but posting with purpose is another level towards helping you rank your google business profile. We have a very specific strategy we use to help rank on Google Maps but simply posting will get you most of the way there!

6. ENCOURAGE CUSTOMERS TO LEAVE POSITIVE REVIEWS

Google reviews can help your profile stand out and show potential customers that your business is reputable. One way to put more Umph behind your reviews is to encourage your customers to include relevant photos of the work as well as include keywords that you want to have your google business profile appear with for future customers.

As with anything SEO related we recommend maintaining a steady review velocity! That means you don’t want a large bulk of reviews coming on one single day and then no reviews for several months. Space them out so that you can maintain a steady flow of relevant positive reviews.

7. RESPOND TO ALL REVIEWS, BOTH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE

This shows that you are attentive to customer feedback and care about providing a good experience. Many customers think that any review other than a perfect 5.0 is the end of the world!

The truth is, less than stellar reviews on your google business profile can impact your google maps rankings but they do allow you to show how you handle an unsatisfied customer. This can be worth a ton to future customers if they see a positive response and offer to help make the negative reviewer happy with their experience.

We do however make sure that for all of our customers that their most recent review is never a negative one so we can maintain an accurate representation of their overall reviews for a future customer that comes across that most recent review showing first!

8. MONITOR YOUR PROFILE REGULARLY

Google makes updates to its platforms often, so it’s important to keep an eye on your profile and make sure everything is still accurate and up-to-date.

Additionally, if you are in a very competitive industry you have to keep an eye out for your competitors sabotaging your listing by recommending changes to your hours and other shady tactics. These can dramatically impact your business and keep you from showing up when customers search for your services.

9. KEEP YOUR PROFILE ACTIVE

The more active your profile is, the more likely it is to show up in search results. Our biggest tip to optimize your google business profile page is just to show regular activity on the platform! Add photos, respond to reviews, and post to your Google business profile page to show that you’re active.

Photos are a great way to show customers what your business is about and what they can expect. You can show customers what your products look like and how your store is set up. You can also show your team and your customers.

Getting back to your customers is a great way to show you’re caring about their opinions. We touched on this previously. Being active on your profile is also a great way to show you’re paying attention.

Adding posts to your profile is also a great way to show your customers you’re active. You can use posts to promote sales, announce new products, or just share some news about your business.

10. USE GOOGLE ANALYTICS TO TRACK YOUR PROFILE’S PERFORMANCE

This will help you see how potential customers are finding your profile and what actions they are taking once they get there. Google includes great analytics with your business profile as well, so you can see how many views your profile gets, how many people click on your website link and how many people call your business.

You can also see how many people found your business by searching for your business name or your business category. You can see how many people found your business on Google Maps, and how many people found your business on Google Search.

NOW ITS YOUR TURN TO TAKE ACTION!

The Google Business Profile Page is one of the best ways to manage your online presence. It is also a good way to get your business found online without having to put a lot of effort into it. If you still haven’t claimed your Google Business Page, now is the time. If you need help managing your business profile we offer Google Business Profile Management as a monthly service to put you in front of local customers every day that are looking for what you have to offer.