What is Google My Business and Why do Businesses need it?

Google My Business Listing, officially called a Business Profile, is a tactic many businesses implement to gain more visibility on Google. If you are one of the business owners with Google My Business Listing, you may not be aware that setting up a business profile doesn't give you management over it. You will require these editing and management options to utilize your Business Profile for effective SEO strategies, lead generation and more.

So, how can you manage your Google Business Profile? The answer to this is creating a separate google my business account and a free business profile.

A Google My Business account is the only way to claim ownership of your Business Profile, access management rights, and unlock extra free tools to boost your Google exposure. In this blog, we go over everything you need to know about Google My Business in this piece, including:

What Google My Business is?
How to use Google My Business effectively?
How to use Google My Business for SEO?
How to create Google My Business account for your Business?

Continue reading to know how to add this powerful free tool to your marketing toolbox!

What is Google My Business?

As we have established, Google My Business is the only tool that allows you to gain access to manage and optimize your Google Business Profile. GMB is one of today's most important business directory listings. So, to understand what a Google My Business is and how it works, you must first learn what a business profile is.

In terms of Google, your business profile is your Google business listing. This profile will appear on local results for Google Searches and appear in Google Maps. Making a Business Profile is similar to adding a location on Google Maps, which anyone can do, including a stranger or an automated listing generator.

Google only requires the business name, category and location. The Business Profile for that location is created once Google confirms that it is not duplicated. Customers can then leave reviews, ask questions, upload images, and even answer questions on the Business Profile. Google may also populate the Business Profile with information gathered from other websites.

This means a Business Profile can exist apart from a Google My Business account. And, whether you established your own Business Profile or not, you must be able to manage the information it displays and the reviews it collects. This is where Google My Business comes in. Creating a Google My Business account listing enables you to access, customize, maintain, and enhance your Google Business Profile for free, which we'll review next.

How to use Google My Business Listing for Local Marketing?

Now that you know, Google My Business is not your business profile but a tool you may use to improve your business profile to increase its exposure and efficiency. Let's review the four ways you may use Google My Business to improve your Google profile's local marketing capabilities.

Engaging Customers

There are several ways in which consumers interact with your Business Profile, and you can use Google My Business Account to engage with them. You can answer queries, respond to reviews, engage in direct messaging, and set up alerts. If you want to publish a post on your Business Profile, you can do it with Google My Business, just like Facebook.

Business Highlights

You have limited information on your Business Profile; however, your Google My Business account dashboard allows you to provide a website link, hours, pricing and products, attributes and more to make your business unique. You can also use Google My Business to update and edit as needed.

Access Insights

Your Google My Business dashboard lets you access key insights into local search performance and your audience. You can view the searches people use to find your business profile, whether they used Google Search or Google Maps, a breakdown of the actions people have performed on your listing, and how well your images are performing in comparison to the competitor's profile in the analytics page of the platform. Also, note that UTM parameters and Google Analytics track clicks coming from a business profile.

Implement Local SEO

An algorithm is used by Google to rank Business Profiles, much like its ads and web pages. You can add high-volume keywords to your business profile and carry out other optimizations via your Google My Business dashboard to help your business rank in local results, which we'll explore next.

How to use Google My Business for SEO?

Dynamic Google Business Profiles exist. Google will prioritize different parts of your profile based on the searched term and the kind of information that customers in your category value the most. They don't just change form depending on the platform. Even better, Google will underline keywords in your profile's content that it deems pertinent.

However, your profile must have facts to prioritize and keywords to emphasize before anything else. Google My Business enhances your profile and broadens your reach, just as you or your agency would use a content management system (CMS) like WordPress to optimize the website for search engines. How may Google My Business be used for local SEO? Well, since Google is fundamentally a search engine, optimizing for Google boils down to three factors: targeting, information quality, and trust.

Specific information: Include pertinent keywords in your business profile to let Google know what you want to rank for while using Google My Business for SEO. Use them in your "from the business" description, blog entries, reactions to reviews, and responses to questions. As you would with any other SEO tactic, incorporate them naturally.
Uphold the standard of the information: Make sure to fill out every field on your Google My Business dashboard with the appropriate information because your Business Profile's accuracy and completeness affect its ranking. Here, it's very crucial that you include your contact details, unique times, and qualifications.
Develop trust: The last method for utilizing Google My Business for SEO plays on the trust factor of Google's algorithm. As your firm develops, be sure your information is accurate and current. Maintain a constant flow of reviews coming in and reply to them. Moreover, show Google that you are active by frequently posting updates to your Business Profile on Google My Business, uploading pictures, and updating your profile.

Your Business Profile displays reviews and responses. Make use of your Google My Business dashboard to manage them.

SEO is vital for every organization, but it is essential for small firms that may compete on the SERP with huge competitors using local targeting. With its strong Business Profiles, Google is making local SEO even easier, so a Google My Business account is vital for any business looking to maximize visibility in its local market.

How to sign up for Google My Business

Go to google.com/business, select "Manage now," and follow the instructions to create a Google My Business account. Remember that while a Google My Business Account gives you access to one and allows you to edit it, it does not generate a Business Profile. Therefore, you need to ensure you can access an existing Business Profile.

Moreover, remember that setting up a Google My Business account does not automatically get access to your Business Profile. Locate your distinct business profile on Google Maps after creating and logging into your Google My Business account, and then click the "Claim this business" or "Own this business?" link directly on the page. Once you've finished the procedure, your Google My Business account will be managed by you and connected to your business profile.

Take Away

With a clear grasp of what Google My Business is, how it works, and how to use it, you can see why using this free service for local marketing isn't just a good idea, but a must. Set up your Google My Business account immediately so your Business Profile may outperform your competitors and attract more clients on the world's most popular search engine.