Do You Manage Your Google Business Profile?Google Business Profile Manager Brielle Manasquan Monmouth County NJ

Do you manage your Google listing, or what is now called your Google Business Profile? To be specific, Google allows a business to create or manage what is a free online marketing presence in addition to its website, other listings and/or social media accounts. It offers the opportunity to have a digital snapshot of the business, including contact information, hours of operation, images, reviews, updated posts, products, services, and more. It is a valuable off-website listing that will help your business rank higher in locally-driven search results. Higher, that is, in both a standard search and/or a Google Map search.

Google remains where the public goes to search (92.18% of all searches), so it is where you want to have a well-defined and visible presence. If you have a Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business (GMB), there is a good chance your business will be visible in local search results BECAUSE Google prioritizes its own listings locally.

A Detailed Active Google Business Profile Is Important to Your SEO

Again, Google prioritizes its own listings high up in their local search result pages. For a locally-driven business interested in the visibility that comes with SEO, this listing is very important. For your competitive business SEO it is very important to maintain an active, regularly updated, and fully optimized Google listing. That effort includes these items:

  • Complete contact information
  • A direct link to the business website
  • Accurate hours of operation
  • Accurate categorization
  • Business, service, and product descriptions that use the most relevant keywords
  • Active keyword-named image-file additions of the business, or from out in the field doing business
  • Regular updates (= posts), including keywords and links to blog posts or relevant website pages
  • And more options seem to keep coming!

Your Google Business Profile Benefits

Google listing is an off-website digital marketing platform with a number of benefits, including potentially visible rank in Google search results. Let’s look at the most obvious benefits here:

1. High Position In Local Search Results

People can form an opinion about local business quickly. An optimized Google listing is an advantage in that reality. Listings are placed higher in a local Google search results page than organic search results, websites and social media. If the local Google listing is complete, active and informative, then the highly qualified, local searchers are going to notice.

2. Business Legitimacy

Google is trusted. In addition to a website, and social media accounts, a local Google listing with active reviews and posts will only improve the perceived legitimacy of your business.

3. Public Reviews

People prioritize reviews, making them one of the most powerful ways to improve visibility online. A business needs them and no source of reviews is more trusted or sought-after by the public than those affiliated with a Google listing. If you want to communicate that your local business is worth considering, then you need a plan for gathering legitimate (never faked reviews) Google listing reviews.

4. Listing Performance

Google offers its business profile users various performance insights (or analytics.) Paying attention to this data sheds light on exactly what the business is doing right and/or what needs to be done in order to get better visibility and lead activity. The data includes the keywords the public used to see the business, how often the business appeared, how often it was interacted with, and how it was interacted with (click to call, click to map, click to message, or a click to the website). In all, the performance data is insight for future strategy.

5. Rank Across A Web Presence

While Google does not say it, a logical assumption is that an active well-optimized profile makes it easier to recognize a serious web presence (i.e. including a Website, a Blog, YouTube channel, Facebook page, etc.). It can serve as a consistent cross-reference for various competitive information. Google search rankings are known to incorporate hundreds of signals in their method of comparing businesses for various subjects, so it’s only logical to believe the listing is an efficient source in that evaluation.

6. Website Traffic

When a website link appears on the listing, people will follow it to see a greater depth of information. It can only help a person find your business website and and improve a website’s traffic.

7. Free Marketing

A Google BP listing is free marketing!

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