Google My Business Should Be a Top Priority to Update

Wow, did this article from Jonathan Kelly, a Forbes Council member ever get to the point!

With a title like: “Stop Reading This And Go Set Up Your ‘Google My Business’ Listing”, you know they have to be pretty serious about this piece of advice. And I agree, but there’s more!

In this article from Forbes Agency Council, Jonathan makes no bones about the importance of Google My Business.  More specifically, he means claiming, updating and working on your Google My Business page as a first point of order in your business branding, marketing and search ranking efforts.  This is something you would have heard me address many times before and the importance still holds true.

“…you need to stop everything and get this done because it can help you be seen on the first page of Google for local searches.”

Jonathan Kelly Forbes Councils Member

Google My Business is your most important Google asset, so keeping fresh and up to date has a big impact on how people who find you, perceive your business. It happens to be one of the fastest and most effective ways to gain access to Google’s first page in search. So for the basics, I’ll leave you read through the Forbes article. It’s a good start.

But what if you’re in a particularly competitive market or worse, in a niche that you think will be very hard to rank up in a search? Are there ways to help improve that? There is.

Going Beyond Google Helps you get found in Google

When Google wants to confirm that it’s sending a person searching for your business, it doesn’t just use its own data, it uses as much information as it can find online about that search. That means looking for matches to your business on other directories like Apple Maps, Bing Maps, Yellow Pages, Facebook and far more. The key here is to make sure that your data is as consistent as possible and found in the places Google trusts the most to verify its search results before serving them up.

Getting A Search Ranking review and Audit

Just how much work is it to get found on all these nooks and crannies that Google is snooping about on? That depends on your business and the only way to get a sense of that is to do a proper search ranking review and audit (a report that shows you how you rank and compare online).

A search audit can take very little time to create but a fair amount of time to interpret. You don’t want to get all mangled up with technical mumbo-jumbo that confuses you so much that you just put things off and leave it the ‘too hard’ basket. This information is way too important to not prioritise, which is the point of the Forbes article. They’re just pointing out the most obvious place to start.

Want To Give It A Go?

If you are very marketing and online savvy, you may very well be able to do a lot of your own SEO (search engine optimisation) and local directory updating. In fact, I encourage you to give it a go. If it’s easy enough for you to do, keep at it.

Grow your Calls Engagements and Sales

If not, getting assistance from someone with the tools and experience to look after your local SEO and directory updates can be very cost-effective. But that’s not all. What if you were, as a result, able to grow your calls, engagements and sales by 20% or even far more?  In some cases, I’ve had clients get 400% the calls they used to get. Now that can’t be guaranteed, but it is impressive.

You’ll notice that I haven’t even mentioned photos, virtual tours, product 360° photography or review requesting yet. But in many respects, there’s no point in doing all of that unless you’re committed to getting the basics right and that starts with Google My Business and other online directories.

If you’d like to have a chat about what you may want to focus on to get found online, feel free to contact me. Chats are free.