How To Improve Your Google My Business Listing

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Google My Business (now Google Business) is an excellent tool that allows you to promote your business directly within Google’s search results, whilst also connecting with potential customers and clients. 

It is a highly effective free business tool that lists your business on both Google Maps and Google search. It pops up on Google when a user searches for your business service or brand name, displaying key information including your contact details, business description, reviews, images and services/products. Even better, you’re able to publish posts and respond to reviews, allowing customers to gain a brief insight into your business and see how active you are.

There are a number of things you can do to improve your Google My Business listing, which can have a positive impact on your local SEO performance, here we lay out how you can fully optimise your business.

Fill out every section of your Google My Business listing

This includes the basics such as your full name, address, phone number, website, and business hours.

After doing this, you should also fill out the sections further on, and this might take a little more time. These include ‘Products and services’, ‘Category and attributes’, and ‘From the business’. Don’t forget to upload compelling images too.

By filling out these sections and going beyond the basic contact details, your Google My Business Listing will look and feel more complete, giving users more information about your business off the bat and making it more likely that they’ll click through and enquire.

For example, in listing your products and services, not only are you helping potential customers to understand your service offering, but they have the opportunity to click through directly to that product or service page.

Choose a particular category

It is important to choose a category in order to optimise your Google My Business Listing. 

This is because your business will be more likely to appear in discovery searches, and this is particularly vital if your company name doesn’t appear to indicate what its actual service is. 

In addition to this, selecting the right categorisation will allow Google to highlight specific details of your business, depending on what industry it is in. 

If you are a hotel for instance you then have the ability to let customers book directly via your listing or if you are a café, Google can publish your menu in your listing.  

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Choose relevant attributes

After choosing a category for your business listing, it is a good idea to select some relevant and important attributes about your business that will be displayed above the address of your company and within your listing on the map pack.

For example, if you are museum business, you might want to add ‘gift shop on site’ in the attributes section, as this could potentially attract more visitors; or if you’re a B2B company you may wish to specify that appointments can be booked online.  On average two of your attributes will show within the map pack.

Choosing relevant attributes is particularly helpful for users who want specific details about your business, and can help you gain many more customers and visitors to your website.

Add photos

Google My Business has the option to add photos or videos to your Google post, and you should definitely take advantage of this. Having photos underneath your business listing will help your company to appear more legitimate and complete, and will definitely boost user engagement. 

Images should be added and updated continuously, as this will show that you have an active and successful business, meaning that you will attract a lot more customers.

It can also be a great opportunity to give a glimpse behind the scenes, or the team involved or even an opportunity to show off your offices.

Get reviews

We appreciate that getting customers to review your business is often the hardest thing – but research has shown time and time again that customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision.

Positive reviews on your Google My Business can help with your visibility and potential conversion from the listing.  Where possible you want to have a steady flow of reviews, rather than a number of historic reviews, as this reflects the quality of your company today.

Answer questions

If a user asks a question on your Google My Business Listing, take the time to respond to it – the questions and answers are public, so may help other customers in the future and more importantly the responses show that you’re active in responding to customers.

Remember, your Google My Business Listing is a living and breathing listing and is often the first impression people have of your business. 

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