Looking for a great way to gain more visibility online? By now, your business or brand probably has a profile across multiple social media networks. You may also have created an official business website. But there’s one effective way to boost your online exposure and generate leads Google My Business. And chances are that you still haven’t tried it:
What is Google My Business?
Not to be confused with Google business listing (officially known as Business Profile), Google My Business is a free internet-based service designed to help promote local businesses online.
Unlike simply listing your brand on Google (which does not give you management over it), you have total control over your GMB profile. You can manage one or more locations from one dashboard, monitor how you appear online across Google, reply to customer reviews on Google, and make your business stand out.
If you still haven’t utilised Google My Business as a part of your strategy, you’re missing out on a plethora of digital marketing opportunities. In this article, we’ll tackle the key benefits of creating a Google My Business profile for your brand.
1. Offers a free and easy way to boost your digital presence
We all know that hiring a digital marketing agency can be costly. If you’re looking to boost your online presence for free, Google My Business is one great option. It’s the best form of local SEO, allowing users to easily access your business when they’re merely searching for goods and services.
This free tool is also easy to use and navigate. You can create and verify your profile in just a matter of hours.
2. Improves visibility and reachability
With GMB, you’ll appear in the local search area and Google Map results, making it easier for customers and potential customers to reach you. Users can see your business hours, website, phone number, directions, reviews and ratings, and even updates and promos.
Google My Business is also useful for the following
- Sending online users to your business website or physical store
- Managing your online reputation
- Creating and posting offers, updates, and events
- Communicating with customers and potential customers
- Learning how people are finding you online
- Understanding where those people are coming from
3. Helps boost organic traffic
It’s not enough that you’ve created an impressive, user-friendly business website with attractive images and blogs — it needs an audience. Your efforts will go down the drain if no one visits your website, or even knows that your business and your offers exist.
Google My Business can work wonders when it comes to generating organic traffic to your site, giving you more opportunities to convert searchers into customers. Customers who find you through GMB can connect to your social media pages and other avenues of digital marketing too.
Organic traffic is the first step to brand recognition. According to Search Engine Watch, 50% of the people who use mobile phones for local searches end up visiting a store. Just imagine the potential sales you can get just through organic search and Google My Business.
4. Provides insights that will help with business management and digital marketing strategy
Planning your brand’s digital marketing strategy? Let the features of Google My Business help you formulate better decisions.
The platform gives you insights into how people find you, where they’re coming from, and what you can improve on based on their ratings and reviews. GMB can also show you the number of views your business profile, photos, and posts are getting. Such insights are crucial to verifying the effectiveness of your current and future digital marketing campaigns, as well as your overall business strategy,
5. Google My Business great way to promote events and specials online
There’s more to promoting your business, events, and special offers than advertising them on social media. You can use the Google My Business Posts feature which is designed to help you highlight and update users about your products and services.
6. Give you an opportunity to connect to those who are not on social media
Believe it or not, there’s still a bunch of people who are not on social media yet still use the web for their day-to-day activities. By listing your business on Google, the world’s biggest search engine, you increase your potential customer base and capture those who can’t find you through social media.
7. Google My Business is like social media, but with a bigger reach
You may be thinking: why use Google as a social platform when I already have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, and more? Aside from the fact that not all of your target customers are on social media, GMB has a couple of advantages typical social media platforms don’t have. These include:
- Google My Business posts are more searchable
- You’ll expand your reach
- You can niche-specific keywords to target a certain market
- GMB impacts your website’s ranking
- You can connect to customers directly via Call To Action (CTA) buttons
Author Bio: Carmina Natividad is a web content writer during the day and a foodie, musician, coffee connoisseur, and plant mom when her day shift is over. She enjoys sharing her insights about blogging, web design, SEO, and other forms of digital marketing. To know more about digital marketing, check out the blogs of SPRINT DIGITAL Agency Dublin.
