Although it’s not considered an SEO tool in the industry, every SEO pro knows that Google My Business (GMB) can positively impact local SEO for your business. Let’s take a look at why you should add Google My Business to your marketing efforts. You can even add GMB posts and updates to your social media efforts to increase your website SEO for local search even more.
Google My Business is now Google Business Profile
First, though, a little housekeeping. The name Google uses for this program has officially changed to Google Business Profile of which Google My Business is a segment. However, most small to medium businesses (SMBs) use the terms Google My Business and Google Business Profile interchangeably.
The major driver for google to make the change was to provide a way for businesses with multiple branches or locations to have more options for local search, and to keep Google users on Google instead of clicking through to other websites.
Google My Business keeps searcher on Google
If business owners provide all the relevant information to searchers in their GMB profile, then there is often no need for searchers to click off of Google. Many of the latest changes and updates to the search engine results page (SERP) stem from that goal: Keep searchers on Google.
Snippets give answers that are scraped from websites, which can answer queries while keeping searchers on Google.
Google Maps used to offer the top 10 matches for a query. That changed to the top 3 and, most recently, to the single top result. With fewer choices, searchers are more inclined to simply use Google Maps to find the top result and …. Yup…. stay on the Google suite of tools.
How to set yourself up to benefit from GMB
- Create your GMB profile
- Post updates to your profile regularly
- Add products to your GMB profile
- Offer specials through GMB
- Ask for reviews from customers and answer them quickly
Why use Google My Business?
- GMB is geared to mobile search. While it will let your customers click through to your business’s website, they can just as easily click to Google Maps and simply go to your location. In fact, 88% of mobile searchers visit a related location or buy online within a week of their search.
- Google boosts those who use its suite of tools in searches. If you have GMB and post regularly, you’ll come up more often in search results.
- You have a better chance of being the featured business on google Maps when you have a GMB presence.
- When you create a GMB profile, you input the information you want featured. Location, service areas, products, and more – you can let Google tell your potential customers what you do and where without having to pay for ads or marketing campaigns.
- It’s free and easy to set up.
- When you consistently add posts and updates using long tail keywords., your GMB profile can give Google plenty of opportunities to understand your intent so they can serve your business up as the best answer to searcher queries.
Wrap up
With all you can gain from Google My Business, there is really no downside to setting up an account. Even if you simply set it and forget for now, you can always come back around later to make it part of your overall social media strategy.
If you’re not sure how to get started, you can get help from Sora Creative. Just click here to find out more.
