8 REASONS TO GET YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PROFILES RIGHT IN 2020
Manpower Office
If you are a brick and mortar business, it is key to have a local impact, ensure people can find you and interact with your business on the spot. Many studies show the rise of smartphone owners using their devices to perform a local search. According to Nectafy, 88% of searches for local businesses on a mobile phone resulted in visits or calls within 24 hours. These stats indicate that location-based searches are a major source for getting potential customers to contact your outlet. These leads are also more likely to convert since they look for products and services that you offer.
Seat Concessionaire
Google My Business is a key tool to rank higher on “near me searches” and marketers should pay attention to the potential of GMB even if it is not the most exciting area to work on and can be a bit tedious. The local marketing institute led by Eric Shanfeld just recently organized a webinar to discuss the key ranking factors for GMB in 2020 and my key takeaways, without entering technical details, are the following 8 aspects:
1- Google My Business, maps, and waze are customer interaction points due to our heavy reliance on mobile phones and might generate up to 50 percent of leads depending on the industry.
2- Proximity is an important ranking factor and you should take advantage of the GMB features if you have physical locations, considering the rise of “near me” and “now” searches.
Caixabank Office3- Google wants to make GMB listings more transactional during the next two years but currently having your contact data like your phone number and email are good tools to get people to interact with your business. Google also has reservation partners to book appointments, but it is expected that Google will develop its solution embedded in GMB.
4- Content creation in the form of Google posts through GMB is relevant for businesses and brands which rely on promotion, specials, launches or deals. For example, in the car industry, google posts with a frequency of 3 per week have worked very well to generate leads and interest.
5- A steady stream of reviews, including its content and sentiment, is important for SEO and ranking. Even if you can not influence reviews directly, you can ask for them and implement a review management platform as it requires the right workflow and tools. The number of review sites used today has diminished and Google concentrates a high percent of consumers looking for reviews.
Desigual Store
6- Google rolled out an image centric browsing interface for local results at the end of 2019, hence Google is getting smart at visual recognition and optimization. Therefore, images in GMB are probably becoming more and more important but marketeers should remember that these photos are for the users and should be relevant and authentic. No stock photos please! Google also asks local guides to help out with content, pictures and evaluations of local businesses which will be important in the food, hospitality and fashion arena.
7- Links from a Google My Business (GMB) can be good for traffic generation if your GMB shows up for relevant search terms that obtain a lot of traffic. The results measured in clicks can be seen directly inside your GMB page
8- Many companies or brands have duplicated or unclaimed GMB listings, this is confusing for Google and potential clients. Cleaning GMB files is also important for a company’s reputation in order to transmit the brand image carefully built through many other brand assets.
