Welcome to our ultimate Google My Business guide for Indy businesses! Google My Business is a free tool that can leverage your business to the top of local search results for free!
Google My Business connects with Google Maps when relevant keywords get typed into Google. For example, “local restaurants near me.” If you’re a local restaurant you definitely want to be showing up on Google for a keyword like that.
We think Google My Business is an essential tool for local Indy businesses to improve their SEO and visibility online. I mean, what business wouldn’t want to utilize one of the best free marketing tools you can get your hands on?
Contents
- Getting Started With Google My Business
- Google My Business Menu Breakdown
2a. Home
2b. Posts
2c. Info
2d. Insights
2e. Reviews
2f. Messaging
2g. Photos
2h. Products
2i. Services
2j. Website
2k. Users - Conclusion
Getting Started With Google My Business
If you own a local business there’s already a chance your company is listed on Google My Business without knowing it! To check, type in your business address here.
If you’re new to Google My Business and see your business already listed, great! That means someone has visited your business and added it on there. Don’t worry, the detailed information can’t be altered until it’s verified.
Once you’re able to find your business, check to see if your business is free to claim. If it’s been claimed by someone you can go through a process to claim it and get it back.
If it hasn’t been claimed, no worries. Now that you’re inside Google My Business, take a look around and try to get more familiar with it.
On the left-hand side of the screen, you should see the menu. Let’s go over each part of the menu for a better understanding.
Google My Business Menu Breakdown
Home
The home tab of Google My Business gives you an overview of your stats, posts, reviews, ways to improve your listing and more.
It’s a great place to make sure you’re always keeping on top of reviews and doing everything you can to keep your business listing up to date.
Posts
Think of posts as the SEO of Google My Business. Although the entirety of Google My Business is how improving your business’ online presence, posts is the heavy-hitter.
To make the best use of posts, update your customers with new information, exciting promotions and the newest ways you’re improving your business!
Tip: don’t forget to add a high-quality picture with an alt tag!
Info
This is where the magic happens. You’ll want to utilize this section to its full potential. Here, you’ll want to get to work optimizing your NAP (name, address and phone) and your business details.
It’s important to make sure the information on this page lines up with the information on your website. It’s also best to have a primary category that describes your business as a whole.
Insights
It’s hard to tell if your Google My Business is performing well if you don’t look at the insights. Google gives you some great information to check calls, website visits and how customers interacted with your page.
However, if you’re linking to your website make sure to install Google Analytics to get a better understanding of your target demographics.
Reviews
Reviews have come increasingly important in the modern age. People have become more and more reliant on reviews to trust whether or not a product or service is worthy of purchasing or not.
When’s the last time you bought something with bad reviews? It’s critical to respond to reviews to help your brand identity and is a big part of Google’s local SEO ranking algorithm.
Messaging
As a more recent feature of Google My Business, messaging is an awesome tool to better connect with your customers and answer questions for them.
Messaging allows for quick responses and is a personal communication channel. You can install it on Google Play or the Apple Store to have access to it on your phone.
Photos
Having high-quality photos is a great way to instill trust and make your business appear more professional. Generally, the more pictures that represent different aspects of your business are good to use.
A high-quality picture of your logo is important. If possible, try to have a picture for every category listed below. Don’t forget, there is a video section, too!
Products
Also a new aspect of Google My Business, products is an ideal method to showcase any products you sell. Try to be informative but not too wordy.
High-quality images are a huge help here. They’re professional, customer-friendly, and helps improve conversion rates.
Services
Similar to products, services lets you define the services you provide for your customers and present a proper value proposition.
Try to use detailed, conversion-optimized copy that will give your customers the information they need and want to buy from you!
Website
We don’t often use this section of Google My Business. Having a modern, responsive website is extremely important to scaling your business. Don’t worry, we can make one for you.
Users
You can add or remove new users to manage or edit your Google My Business listings!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my ultimate Google My Business guide. If you utilize it properly it can an amazing asset to boost your local SEO for free!
Conclusion
Google My Business is an amazing tool every local Indy business should utilize to boost their search engine rankings, increase brand awareness, and ultimately get more leads…for free!
We hope you enjoyed our ultimate Google My Business guide for Indy businesses.
Bonus: You can use Google Ads to get more leads to your Google My Business listing! If you want to learn more about Google Ads, check out our Ultimate Google Ads Beginner’s Guide. You might also be interested in our Top 2020 SEO Trends Impacting Indy Businesses.