Why You Need to Claim Your Google My Business Listing

If you have ever Googled your competition and saw that their business listing looked completely professional - with a phone number, hours of operation, address, etc. you might wonder how to achieve the same for your business. The simple answer is a Google Listing. And to some adding your business to Google Listing or also known as “Google My Business Listing” may seem redundant. As your business already has a contact page, a phone number and a listed address. Google also knows how to crawl your site and list that information without you having to lift a finger. So what more could you need out of your Google listing?

As it turns out there is a lot more that your business can do to optimise its presence on Google - even when someone simply types in your business name. And if you want your business to perform as well as your competitors it’s safe to say claiming your Google Listing is a great place to start.

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a free tool that helps businesses create and manage their Google listings, which appear when customers find businesses on their Google Search and Maps. It helps to attract new customers to your business and share information about what makes your business different from your competitors.

You start by clicking over to Google.com/Business. There, you’ll be able to create an account for your business that helps you control the exact information that people see when they Google your business. Although you can’t always control what happens in the search results or in sponsored search, a listing with Google Business will help you put out an accurate listing of your contact information.

Improve Your Local Ranking

If you have a business that ships products or offers services all over the country, then there’s a good chance that you have been overlooking one critical aspect of your SEO - local search.

Being on Google My Business increases your business’s visibility on Google Local Pack, Google Maps, and Local Finder. Local business search traffic tends to be the highest in conversion rates. And is something that should not be overlooked in your SEO strategy. 88% of customers running a local business search will be on their mobile device, these searchers are likely to call your business’s phone number within 24 hours of finding your business via Google Listing. Ensuring that your phone number is prominent on your business’s Google listing will help drive more traffic to that phone number and this will result in a higher conversion rate, and decrease losses to your business’s competitors. 

Here are the top 5 ways Google My Business can help to improve your local SEO:

• Helps to enhance your business’s website Google ranking by showing your business offerings as per the customers’ requirements.
• Improving the listing of your business in local search results. By tracing the location of users as per their search area, Google My Business will display your business listing with the products and services your business provides.
• Budget-friendly: A free and easy to use tool that makes it a cost effective option to help your business in expanding the benefits for your customers and help to build your business’s online presence further.
• It can also help to manage the reviews of your business by allowing the platform to showcase and respond. Responding to the customers’ reviews helps in building the credibility of your business. Customers get a sense of satisfaction when they are heard and answered.
• An up-to-date and detailed Google My Business listing guaranteed to help in appearing in the Google search results.

But to ultimately improve your business’s ranking, local searcher are relying on three core elements:

1. Proximity: The distance between the searcher and your business.
2. Relevance: Products and services you are offering are relevant to the search queries.
3. Prominence: What do other consumers say about your products and services?

Locally targeted content also plays a vital role in local SEO efforts. Now local SEO is becoming an essential business component to gain long term success.

Google My Business for Local SEO is an outstanding feature in increasing your business’s reach to your local customers. It helps in improving your local SEO, which eventually helps in improving your overall SEO score. Google My Business truly is an online business directory where you can find all the business information of different businesses. So it is advisable and mandatory to keep the information accurate and up to date. 

How is your business’s local SEO doing? Is now the right time to enhance your Google My Business profile? Get in touch.