Flat out, Google My Business Generates Leads. Have you Googled your business lately? Have you claimed you Google My Business listing yet?
Why?
Every single business in existence can use Google My Business to generate highly targeted leads for their company. It’s pretty essential to your Online Marketing success.
How Google My Business Generates Leads
The 10 advantages of Google My Business
Google says, “50 percent of mobile consumers that search for a local business visit it within a day of the search, and 18 percent of consumers make a purchase.”
- It’s free. Yes, FREE.
- It serves as the ultimate business directory with pertinent business information accessible to customers instantly.
- All of the information you list is clickable. Customers can click your phone number to call on their smartphones, or tap your website address to see your site.
- The information looks great on any device, including smartphones.
- Both local and online businesses can use it.
- You can post pictures and videos to your page.
- You can access metrics to see how many people are looking for and finding your site.
- It drives traffic to your website.
- Customers can read and add reviews.
- You have one centralized dashboard with access to Google+, Insights, Reviews, Hangouts and Google Analytics.
How to Setup Your Google My Business:
- Get started by signing up with Google My Business.
- If your business has a physical address, you’ll enter it. If your business is online, you’ll create a brand page
- If you don’t have a Google+ account, you’ll have to set up one up at the same time.
- Verify your business by postcard or phone. None of the information you enter will appear online until you verify your business.
- Enter business information.
How to Attract Prospects to Your Page
From the main dashboard, you’ll see this info bar at the top…
From this location, you’ll enter or edit the following:
- Identify photos – These photos include your profile picture and logo.
- Interior photos – Shots inside your store or business.
- Exterior photos – Shots of your building.
- Photos at work – Pictures that represent what you do.
- Team photos – Pictures of you and your employees.
- Additional photos – Any pictures that don’t fit into the categories above can go here.
- Google suggests adding three photos to each category – Some of the pictures, like your profile picture, have suggested dimensions too. It’s best to start with a picture that’s landscape (horizontal) and crop or enhance it with a tool like PicMonkey.
Make sure your pictures are clear and crisp. It probably goes without saying, but don’t use any picture that you wouldn’t put on a paid advertisement.
These statistics provide inside information that allows you to make decisions and customize content to your niche audience.
Aside from your business information, you’ll see several other features on your dashboard. Here’s a look at the additional components on your dashboard, along with things you need to know about each section:.
It provides a more in-depth look at your website traffic, whereas Insights is just looking at the traffic garnered on your Google My Business account.
Pick a business category, or several. There are hundreds of business categories to choose from. You want to describe what your business is, not what it does. You would enter “Pet Supply Store” not “Pet food and toys.”
You can enter more than one category too. If your business specializes in more than one category, add it:
- Business summary
- Website
- Hours of operation
- Pictures or a virtual tour.
There are three main sections: Visibility, Engagement, and Audience:
- Visibility shows you the number of views that your profile, photos, and posts get. You have access to graphs and can change the data to show the last 7, 30 or 90 days.
- Engagement shows you how your audience is interacting with your posts. You’ll see stats on +1 clicks, shares, and comments. You can set the graphs to show the last 7, 30 or 90 days.
- Audience shows you a breakdown of the people following you. If you notice customers are interacting with your Google+ posts mostly on Friday, save your best content for that day. If your Insights show a strong presence in anther country, consider sharing more links that pertain to those customers.
- Uploading pictures
There are more photos to upload than just your profile and cover art here. Pictures are broken into six categories:- You can post to a Google+ account right from your dashboard. You can type in an update, or share photos, links or videos. You can even create an event with a simple click.
- Google+
If your business isn’t on Google+, you’ll create an account at the same time you set up your business page. While many businesses flock to Facebook and Twitter, Google+ is the up-and-comer in the social world. Searchmetics predicts Google+ will overtake Facebook in social sharing by 2016. - Business Introduction
Provide a clear, concise summary of your business. A sentence or two will work. Use descriptive words that paint a picture for your customers.
Why is this so important? Google makes business suggestions to users based on the information you provide. If you enter the wrong category, it’s not likely your business will show up in the recommendation area.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics provides the master key to all things analytics. This tracking tool, which is also free, provides statistics on your website traffic and audience. You can integrate Google Analytics with VerticalResponse, Click Funnels, MailChimp and many other email marketing providers to see how your emails impact your site traffic, too.
Google My Business can connect your business with customers on the other end of those searches.
Insights
How many people have seen your digital display (Google My Business)? Are people interacting with your posts on Google+? You have access to a wealth of analytics under the “Insights” tab.
Reviews
- Encourage customers to leave reviews. Remind them at the checkout, or send an email asking them to leave feedback with a link to your Google My Business page.
- Get bad feedback? Don’t panic. If it violates the review policies, you can flag it and Google will review it and take action.
- Respond to positive reviews too. Thank customers for taking time to share their comments.
Start a Hangout
Need to host a quick conference call? You can start a Google+ Hangout, which is a free video chat service, right from your dashboard. It allows you to talk with up to 10 people and share screens.
Again, it’s FREE!
In conclusion, Google is not trying to trick you or empty your piggy bank. They are trying to help put you in touch with your IDEAL customer.
If you think about it, it’s a total suite of tools (for free). Otherwise, you’d be juggling (and paying) for many other tools at once to achieve what you already have within one hub: YourGoogle My Business.
Think, “One Problem (Customer) = One Solution (Your Business)”
