WHY Google My Business for local marketing IS A MUST
1. Engage with consumers
There are a lot of ways consumers can interact with your Business Profile, and you use your Google My Business account to engage back with them. You can respond to reviews, answer questions, enable direct messaging, and set up associated alerts. You can even use Google My Business to publish posts to your Business Profile, much like you would with Facebook and other social media platforms.
2. Highlight your business
A Business Profile alone contains limited information about your business. But through your Google My Business account dashboard, you can provide hours, a link to your website, products, and pricing, attributes, and other details that make your business unique. You will also use your Google My Business to make edits and updates as needed.
3. Gain insights
You can use the Google My Business dashboard to gain key insights into your audience and local search performance. In the analytics tab of the platform, you can see the queries customers are using to find your Business Profile, whether they found you on Google Maps or Google Search, a breakdown of actions taken on your listing, and how your photos are performing compared to other profiles in your category. This is critical when you are a restaurant using 3rd party delivery services. Note also that there are ways to track clicks from a Business Profile via UTM parameters and Google Analytics.
4. Maintain quality of information
The completeness and accuracy of your Business Profile impact its rank, so make sure to provide the requested information in every section of your Google My Business dashboard. Especially important here are your contact information, special hours, and attributes.
5. Build trust
The final approach to using Google My Business for SEO appeals to the trust component of Google’s algorithm. Keep your information updated and accurate as your business evolves. Keep a steady stream of reviews coming in and respond to them. Also, signal to Google that you are active by regularly uploading photos and publishing posts to your Business Profile through Google My Business.
