What Should You Be Doing with Your Google My Business Page?

I often hear this ques­tion while work­ing with our clients in the con­tract­ing and paint­ing indus­try: ​“Where should I be post­ing on social media?”  I love this ques­tion, most­ly because it means that the asker knows that ​“every­where” isn’t the right answer. You’ve got to plan your social strat­e­gy based on your tar­get audi­ence, the lev­el of vis­i­bil­i­ty you can expect, and where your cur­rent clients are hang­ing out online. More on that anoth­er time… For now, I want­ed to share a cou­ple quick tips about a resource I hope you ARE using: your Google My Busi­ness page.

What Is Google My Business?

As a quick side note, please don’t con­fuse this with Google+, the for­mer social media plat­form offered by Google (this is no longer around as of the fall of 2018) that has nev­er quite got­ten its wheels 100% off the ground. Google My Busi­ness, on the oth­er hand, is essen­tial­ly a free busi­ness list­ing. Since Google makes the online world go round, and I assume you want to cap­ture online traf­fic, tak­ing advan­tage of this list­ing is real­ly a no-brainer.  When peo­ple look for your busi­ness, they’ll see your list­ing right in their search engine results page (SERP). Below is an exam­ple of what this looks like:  The info on the right side of the screen is the Google My Busi­ness pro­file, offer­ing a lot of help­ful infor­ma­tion to prospec­tive clients, from direc­tions via Google Maps to quick access to your lat­est reviews. 

How Do You Set Up a Google My Busi­ness Profile?

It’s free, it’s quick, and it’s easy. You can find more info from Google itself right here, with a clear Start Now in the top right of the page. Set­ting up your page involves fill­ing out your basic com­pa­ny infor­ma­tion, and ver­i­fy­ing your address to prove your loca­tion (Google will mail you a ver­i­fi­ca­tion post­card with a unique code). Once you have access, sign­ing in will take you to your Dash­board. This con­trol cen­ter allows you to man­age all aspects of your pro­file, review and cre­ate posts, access ana­lyt­ics (if you’re feel­ing tech-savvy!), view and reply to reviews, and more.

How Can You Make the Most of Your Google My Busi­ness Listing?

Here are a few quick and easy tips:

• Upload pho­tos of your team, your work, and your location
• Make sure that all your con­tact infor­ma­tion is filled out, mak­ing it easy to get in touch with you
• Try to build your num­ber of Google reviews! Thank the advo­cates who leave kind feed­back, and pro­fes­sion­al­ly respond to those inevitable haters. Reviews also help build your SEO pow­er (search engine optimization)!
• Keep your hours of oper­a­tion updat­ed! This is too easy to over­look, but it’s very important.

Ready To Take It To the Next Level? 

Make sure you add a new Google My Busi­ness Post at least once per week. This is an awe­some oppor­tu­ni­ty to share a quick blurb, pho­to, and link, almost like a social media update. You could share a link to a recent blog, share a pho­to from a job­site, spread the word about a spe­cial offer… You name it! Did you see the post on the screen­shot we shared above? Check it out again! These posts DO expire after 7 days — this is Google’s way of mak­ing sure you’re cre­at­ing fresh con­tent. The only excep­tion to this shelf-life is if you cre­ate an Event. In that case, Google pulls your post once the event date has passed. 

Have More Ques­tions About Google My Business?

Let us know! We’re here to help. Until then, keep that pro­file updat­ed, and have fun with it!