Google my Business: 9 Actionable Tips for Better Rankings

now there's been a lot of things happening on Google my business over the past few months that are changing the way you can promote your business online if you haven't paid attention you're likely not using nine of the most awesome new features Google has recently introduced if you want to know what these features are so you can attract more customers you don't want to miss this hi everyone and welcome to a new video tutorial dedicated to the small business community I'm Luke Duran the founder of ranking Academy Cote UK and if you're new to my channel you will find out my aim is to help you as a small business owner to improve the visibility of your business online so you can get more visitors more leads and more clients and of course make more money right so if you haven't subscribed to my channel yet make sure you do it now and hit the bell button so you get notified first as soon as I publish a new video if you're a business owner it is likely you've already created a Google my business profile if you haven't yet then hurry and watch my tutorial called how to add your business to Google Maps if you have you've probably claimed your listing a while back and haven't done very much with it since well let me tell you something you're sitting on a goldmine in today's video I'm going to cover in details nine powerful features you must use to enhance your business profile in Google stick til the end of the video so I can show you my hot tip on how to track accurately the number of visitors coming from your Google my business listing directly to your website this will be super useful to you once you've started using these features so without further ado let's start with feature number one Google my business posts Google my business boots are like mini ads displaying on your business listing you can use them to promote offers new product launch events and whatever else you may think is relevant to your business this is a very powerful marketing tool which I haven't seen many businesses use yet it really makes your listing stand out as you can use images call to actions and add a link to your website let's have a look at how it's done okay so login to your Google my business account once you're in there you can access the post option are two ways on the left hand side menu or from the actual main dashboard here whichever option you decide is up to you let's go for it post it's a simple interface we can just click on that little camera icon in order to add a post you will see a pop-up which will give you various options as to what type of post you want to create so we've got a worse new option an event option an offer option depending on which option you decide to go for you'll have a number of fields to fill in for the sake of this demonstration I'm gonna use the simplest one which is the what's new so let's start by adding an image it's important you add an image or you can even add a video now which is even better if you can I'm only gonna use an image for today select the image that you want to add just so you know the best dimension for the image are five hundred and ninety pixels by four hundred and forty five pixel once you've added the image you can write your post you can add up to 300 words within your post and I'm also gonna add a button as a call to action I'm gonna use the learn more as an example and I'm gonna link it to a page on my website and all you need to do is click on the publish button right at the top I said it's done let's now verify it is published on my business listing let's refresh as it may take a few seconds before it appears and here we go you've got it here I'm just gonna click on it as you can see my post it's there and I'm gonna click on a learn more click to action button which is gonna take me straight to my site let's move on to feature number two which is still widely under used by most businesses questions and answers a few months ago Google launched this new feature which enables potential and existing customers to ask questions about your business directly within your Google my business listing if you're serious about your online reputation you should monitor this activity as carefully as you do monitor your Google reviews this is because anyone can answer those questions even though they don't own the business this can be very dangerous since they may provide the wrong information on the plus side this is a perfect opportunity to learn what your visitors may need and post the accurate and professional answers for everyone to see unfortunately you will not receive any notification in your Google my business dashboard when someone asks a question if you want to be notified quickly so you can answer the question in a timely manner you will need to download the Google map app on your phone and turn on a notification option suddenly this only works on Android if you're an iPhone user you will simply need to check your business listing regularly feature number 3 business description business descriptions used to be part of local listing but was removed in 2016 this feature has been reintroduced in March 2018 so you can add a business description to your listing once more it will display at the bottom of your local panel as Google recommends on its official health page you should use the description feature to give details about what you offer what makes your business different a bit about your history and anything you think might be useful to your customers you shouldn't go over 750 words let me show you how to add a description to your panel so I need to google my business and select the business listing you want to add a description to if you have more than one on the left hand side menu click on the info option then from the main screen scroll down until you see the option add business description click on the pencil icon and add your description in there once you're done click apply your description will have the pending status for a few seconds maybe a couple of minutes once it's gone just go and verify if it appears correctly in your business listing it may take another few minutes before it refreshes but then you should see the description appearing at the bottom of your control panel quick note when your business listing is displayed on a mobile version the description will only be visible under the About tab let's move on to feature number four google reviews unless you've been living under a rock you've all heard about the importance of Google reviews the quantity and quality of google reviews we'll collect for your business will play a crucial role in your Google rankings it can also work wonders for your business reputation since 84 percent of people trust online reviews online reviews are prominently displayed next to your listing in Google Maps as well as your business panel so how do you get Google reviews for your business simple ask your customers unlike other online players Google doesn't see anything wrong with asking customers for reviews as long as you do it in an ethical way what does that mean don't bribe don't pay or exchange services in order to gain reviews for more info on how to get Google reviews watch my video how to get Google reviews make sure you respond to all the reviews you are receiving as it will show your potential customers you are professional and attentive to your clients to do this simply log into your Google my business profile click on the review option in the left-hand side menu and scroll down to the review where you want to post a reply and if you want to be notified as soon as you receive a review download the Google my business app install the app and open it go to your settings and then go to your notification make sure the customer review option is ticked when a customer post a review you will see a message popping up on your screen which you can respond to straight away feature number five service menu originally launched to give restaurant owners the option of adding their menu as part of the Google listing this feature has been extended to some service businesses such as electricians beauty salon florists and even digital agencies these businesses can add the list of services they provide to their listing who they Google my business account services can be listed by category which will include a description and can contain multiple items which need to be priced individually let me show you how to add a service menu to your listing log into your Google my business account and from the left hand side menu select the info link crawl down and click on services a pop-up should appear allowing you to create your first service section give it the appropriate name add an item a price and a description and click on add repeat the same process to add more section or items unfortunately service menu are only visible through the Google listing on mobile phones let's now look at feature number 6 adding videos to your Google my business I've mentioned this in previous tutorials but did you know that by 2021 82 percent of all Internet traffic will be video related videos are so powerful that 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound I can only assume you've already added a bunch of photos to your business profile which is a great way to attract visitors but did you know that you can now add videos to your google listing to you look at this example from wicked waffle based in Washington and how the video really brings this listing to life obviously you can't load any kind of video the video content should feature your place of business and all the people who work there and don't think of publishing a video you've purchased from a stock library as it will be removed by Google the requirements are very simple h video must be up to 30 second long up to a hundred megabyte 120 pixels or higher this means there is no need for some mega Hollywood video production you can literally shoot something very decent using your phone to add a video to your google listing just log in to your business panel click on photos and then choose the add video option from the main screen from there you can either select or drag a video in the main panel select your video and then wait until it's uploaded after a few seconds you should see it as part of the list of all your pictures according to Google it can take up to 24 hours for your videos to show but the one I have published only took 5 minutes a picture is worth a thousand words but a video is worth a thousand pictures so start uploading yours today let's now move on to feature number 7 add a booking button to your Google listing if you are a service-based type of business that relies on people making appointments you are going to love this feature you can now add a booking button directly into your Google my business panel which will allow visitors to make a booking straight from your listing it will really help make your listing stand out from the crowded search results and turn viewers into customers much faster the booking process is very quick and also trackable in your Google my business dashboard they are however a couple of caveats to this feature firstly it's only available in certain countries so you may not have access to it secondly to enable this feature you will need an account with one of Google supported scheduling providers to sign up log into your Google my business dashboard and click on the accept bookings on Google option sign up with one of the providers from the list a booking button should be included in your listing a few days later if you're already a partner the button should have been added automatically time to move on to feature number 8 direct messages with your customers yes existing customers and potential customers you find your business listing in Google can message you directly when you implement this feature only available in certain countries for now this is another great way of engaging with visitors and quickly turn them into customers to install this feature just log into your Google my business dashboard and choose the messaging option if you don't see the option it means it's not available to you you'll then be asked to verify your phone number and then set up a welcome message please note that this feature only works for mobile web users and that doesn't include app users let's now look at our very last feature feature number nine website builder this is not necessarily one of the newest features however I thought it needed to be part of this list if you don't have a website and you're on a tight budget this one is great for you with this feature you can create a free web page to promote your business in just a few minutes no need for any coding skills or fancy graphics software the multiple predefined formats make the process very easy to use and the result very professional-looking this feature warrants a whole video to itself and I have created one which is called Google website builder so if you're interested in building your own just go and watch it after this video this almost brings me to the end of this tutorial but as promised let me give you one last tip so you can accurately track all the effort you are putting into your Google my business listing accurately one of the main objectives when optimizing your Google my business profile is to drive more organic traffic to your website and once you've put so much effort optimizing your Google listing you'd like to know if it's paying off wouldn't you if you check your daily web visitors through Google Analytics as you should a quick look at the number of organic visits should let you know if your listing is bringing more visitors not so fast there is a flow in Google Analytics people coming across your Google my business listing from mobile devices and clicking through to your website will be counted as direct traffic instead of organic so how are you supposed to measure properly by adding a little tracking code to the website link pointing to your site in your Google my business listing let me show you how it's done head over to the google campaign URL builder site don't worry about the URL I will post it in the description below let's start by filling in the field and we will put our website in there first in the campaign source field just add GMB listing or Google my business listing that will enable us to identify where the traffic is coming from in a campaign medium just add organic once you've done this scroll down and in the share degenerated campaign URL you should see a new URL in there which will include the parameters that you've included above just simply copy this URL and paste it into your Google my business website URL so let's have a look at that there you go I've already logged into my Google my business profile go down to the info tab and scroll down to the website option click on the pencil icon to edit it and then paste your URL in there and apply the URL will show a pending status for a few minutes and that's all you need to do after a few days all you need to do is go into your Google Analytics account scroll down to the acquisition option all traffic channels and in there you should see a list of channels that drive traffic to your site what we were interested in is the organic search results simply click there and then we still can't see anything right but what you need to do is split the traffic by source and in order to do that just go to the secondary dimension type source medium and there you will see all the traffic generated through your Google my business listing directly to your website okay we're all done here thank you very much for watching as always post your comments all questions below as I will do my best to answer them if you can a little click on the thumbs up will be much appreciated don't forget to subscribe to my channel thank you very much for watching and see you soon for a new video you

Channel: Ranking Academy

Views: 239,365

Keywords: google my business, google my business tutorial, google my business 2018, google my business optimization, google my business tutorial gmb local marketing, google my business 2019, ranking academy

Id: XR0eP2V6SAk

Length: 17min 36sec (1056 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 04 2018