Three out of four shoppers search online when they want to find a particular product, and seven out of ten made a purchase from a business they found using a search engine. If smaller businesses want to reach broader audiences, it is mandatory for them to begin listing on Google My Business.
An important first step in any local SEO strategy is to claim and verify your local business’ Google My Business listing. If this is done correctly, you could increase your chances of showing up at the top of the search results in Google’s Local Pack, Local Finder, Google Maps, and organic rankings. This gives your company a greater amount of visibility on digital platforms, which allow potential customers to find you first and learn more about your products, get in touch with you personally, etc.
Smaller companies may feel discouraged when trying to distinguish themselves from their larger competitors. But even the smallest steps can provide the leverage local entrepreneurs need to make a noticeable impact in their region. You should provide pertinent contact information about your company, such as your address, phone number, business hours, and types of payments you accept. These are only a few examples out of the variety of questions Google wants you to answer when completing your Google My Business profile.
It is also very important to know that Google actively encourages people who are familiar with your business to answer prompts or leave reviews, that way Google My Business can learn information about your company from outside sources. Google believes that user-generated content helps build an active and proactive e-community, provides more accurate and detailed information about businesses, and allows Google Business to experiment with different market research strategies.
Collecting consumer data via Google My Business is one of the most powerful strategies available. Combining this strategy with the effective use of search engine algorithms (Google, Yahoo, and others) and Facebook advertising allows you to re-target specific audiences based on location, interests, age, sex, online behavior, and many other factors. If you understand your customers using tools like these, you can deliver better products, services, and experiences.
Google Business is one of the best tools to reach your target audience and expand your small sized business beyond that target audience. What makes Google Business unique is that it combines all the different Google platforms into one central hub, which includes your Google+ profile, Google Maps profile, Google reviews, access to data on Google Analytics and Google Insights, and more. Each time someone looks up keywords related to your business on Google’s search engine, the engine will arrange the search results so that your business will appear before the organic search results.
Google Business will give you visibility almost instantly, but after that, it will be up to you to maintain a collection of good reviews and recommendations from your customers. However, that is the primary goal of any entrepreneur out there. Having these tools allow people like you to run your business without worrying too much about how to get people there.
