Take your Google Business Page to the Next Level

Now that you have read our previous post about How to Set up a Google Business Page, you are going to really want to take it to the next level. You optimize your company’s GMP profile of course. But how exactly is that done?  

You listen to the industry leaders, that’s how. And lucky for us, the software geniuses over at CallRail, a marketing platform for businesses that rely on quality phone calls, leads, and new customers to grow and succeed, have provided the us with a a downloadable PDF so you can take your Google Business Page to the next level.

You will probably hear the term SEO or search engine optimization thrown around a lot in the rental business industry. The truth is optimizing your Google Business Page may be one of the most important things you can do so you can reach customers in your own back yard. So in addition to the downloadable PDF mentioned above, we are providing you with ways to improve your listing moving forward.

Top 10 Ways to Optimize your Google Business Page

1) Adding Correct Business hours

Add your daily business hours, opening and closing times and change your holiday periods. Opening and closing periods tend to shift from year to year, make sure customers know when you’re open for business and avoid negative experiences, such as a customer travelling to your business just to find out it is closed.

2) Listing the right category for your business

Proper category associations are one of the most important foundational ranking factors within Local SEO. Picking the right category can be difficult, especially now that Google no longer allows custom categories, meaning you will have to select from a predefined selection. For the best results, pick the category most relevant to your business’s services and try and limit the number of categories you select to 2 or 3 instead of using the full 10.

3) Add photographs

Adding photographs of the outside and inside of your business is a great way to help customers identify your business while searching, they may have seen your business before and will be able to find you quicker than without reference. This also helps give a good first impression to new customers finding you through search, sending a clear and positive message.

4) Add a 360-degree view or a “virtual tour” of your business

Using the new 360-degree or virtual tour is another great way to show your customers your business, letting them experience it before leaving their homes. This works exceptionally well for businesses such as restaurants and hotels, setting the atmosphere before your customer arrives.

5) Ask for reviews

Reviews are one of the main ranking factors to consider when using Google my business. Ask for reviews from your customers and try and encourage and promote positive ones by doing great work, reviews are a great indicator of how much trust to place in a business and when a customer can see multiple positive reviews they can rest assured they are going to receive a good service. Incurring negative reviews and not keeping up to date on how your business is presented over search listings can be a big mistake, especially if you spend a lot on marketing.

6) Respond to the reviews

Getting reviews isn’t the only way to help improve your Google My Business listing, responding to reviews is a great way to increase customer engagement and one of the best ways to recover from a negative review is a well thought out – constructive response, showing customers, your business not only thinks their opinions are important, but you’re always interested in improving customer experience.

7) Use the Posts feature

Google has introduced a feature called “Posts” for Google My Business. The feature lets you create a single post to add to your Google My Business listing, with an image, an attachment and a button to interact with. This feature is a great way to increase your ‘real estate’ within search results. Posts typically last one week so make sure to update regularly. If you set the post type to an event then the post will last until the event has run its course.

8) Merge Duplicate accounts and listings

When setting up a Google My Business account, there are sometimes duplicate listings for the same business. The best course of action to take is to claim and merge or delete the other listings, so there is only one listing for your business.

9) Consistent Citations

When considering how to rank your business within the listings, Google will crawl citations from other business directories for more information. The main factor it looks for is consistency. If you have listings with Bing or Yelp, make sure that your address and other details are 100% consistent across the broad.

10) Add Some Services & Products

Ensure you’re taking advantage of the services and products on Google My Business. This is a relatively new feature which allows eligible Google My Business accounts to list the services you provide, these are keywords that can help your business get found for the services you offer. The second feature is products which allow us to upload a picture, price picture, title and description. The products are visible to users when they see your Google My Business listing.