Hello Big Ponders!
This week we’re covering one of the biggest quick wins available.
How to set up and get even more out of your FREE Google My Business (GMB) account. If you’re already posting in Facebook and not also posting that same status update into GMB, then this is the perfect time to grasp the free promo opportunity.
No tech knowledge needed. We will walk you through it in this new video clip.
Let’s jump in!
Click to watch the video.
Here’s the video chat transcript in full. Enjoy!
Video Chat Transcript
Andrew: Hello Big Ponders! My name is Andrew McGarry, and I'm here with Ari Pournaras for the Big Pond digital agency. Hello, world! So Ari, today we are going to talk about 'Google My Business' and all of the ways that businesses can use it to their advantage to generate leads and sales and just growth in general. So let's kick on. Let's start with an easy one. What is Google my business, Ari over to you.
Ari: Sure. So Google, my business is a free tool by Google that allows businesses of any size to create a profile and a listing add their information, services, what they do, Description, images, logos, photos of your team, anything basically a summary of your company. And it's really good because you can drive traffic through that.
Andrew: And as you say, it's free and free is always good. So how can businesses utilize Google my business to increase leads and sales?
Ari: Ok, so first, that is, you go to Google my business, you set up a profile and fill in all the information and claim your listing. And so by claiming a listing, essentially what you do is you create a profile and then Google needs to verify that. So they send you a postcard with a pin number and then... It takes three to five business days. You add in and that's you verified. Sometimes in some cases it might be a phone number. Ok. So you add your phone number, they call you or an email, but the most popular option is a postcard.
Andrew: Ok, but it's not a lot of work. There's not a lot of effort.
Ari: No, no, literally. It could take you 10 minutes to set that up, and then you need to wait a few days for it to get verified. And that's up and running. Pretty much.
Andrew: Ok, that's good. So not a lot of effort for a decent reward. Sounds good. Ok, so then what are your top five tips for getting the most out of Google My Business.
Ari: So, first tip would be to fill in as much information as possible. So typically you get the name, business description, photos, videos if you have them, categories. It's pretty easy to actually walk through it and fill it all in, and it shouldn't take provided you have your logos and everything handy, you shouldn't take longer than two hours to actually do. And just try and go the extra mile and try and fill it in as much as possible. I know that some businesses might fill in with business name and the website and that's it, but just try and complete it as much as possible. So that's number one and number two would be your categories. And if you go to the next slide, Andrew, I think I've got them... all the points are there. So there we go. So primary and secondary category... that's basically what you do as a business. So if you're a restaurant, your primary category would be a restaurant. If you have a bar, the secondary category could be like a pub bar type of thing. So there's several categories they can actually use and they're extremely important to add them, so try and do some research. See what your competitors are actually doing online and try and fill that in with the primary and secondary categories, right? It's really important. Third one is N-A-P and that stands for name, address, postcode. So what we mean by that is if you have listings elsewhere and like, for example, on Yell, you want your Google address, postcode and name to be consistent to everything else you do online. So that includes your website information, your contact us section, footer page info, Yell listings, any other listings that you have.
Andrew: Yeah, that makes sense. Because businesses may have moved premises, they could have changed their phone number. You might have even changed, you know, the email address. Some people could have hello at the name of the company. So, you know, it's not unusual for company information to change over time. So as you're saying here, it's you know, you don't need to be an expert. You just need to be able to make sure that your details are up to date.
Ari: Exactly. And just keeping them consistent. And that also helps your your visibility online, your rankings. And so the fourth one will be reviews. So reviews, we all know how important they are to any business. Absolutely. So try to be a little bit proactive. You can basically push people not like, make them, you know, leave a review. Like if you provide a good service and are really happy, you can basically get in touch with them and say, Hey, if when you get the chance, please leave a review on our profile and be a little bit more proactive about that because you're not going to get a lot of people just going on your profile randomly leaving reviews.
Andrew: Yeah, you got to ask for the review if you want to.
Ari: Yeah, ask and try! Always trying to get a few more. And so that's really important and really helps. And the last one, I'd say, doing posts. So through Google My Business is a section. And again, this is all free. You can actually add an offer in a post and maybe like an event that's coming up. Basically, anything you want to promote to the world.
Andrew: Information that a company might normally post on, say, Facebook. That information could actually be posted into Google directly. So that's what you're saying?
Ari: Directly yes, you can keep your listing fresh. And it also shows up so when somebody Googles your listing, they will see that event or promo code or whatever it is that you're trying to... to get out to the world, they would like to see that under your Google my business.
Andrew: Yeah. And that's the great advantage in that, you know, people may not see your Facebook post, but if they search for your name in Google, if you have a Google my business account and you've done a new, you know, info post, it actually will show up. So I mean, it seems like it's a no brainer, really, isn't it?
Ari: Yeah. I mean, they don't even have to visit your website to see that, that information is right there and they can call you directly, claim the offer or, yeah, find out a little bit more about you. Yeah. So those are five tips that, you know, if any business follows them, that doesn't at the moment, you're going to get a lot more out of Google My Business.
Andrew: Right? Yeah. So you could get, you know, more visibility, maybe get more visits to your website. Exactly. You know, as you said, you know, it's a free tool. It's not difficult. I mean, you don't need any expert knowledge to be able to fill it in. I mean, I suppose it's no more difficult than signing up for an email account.
Ari: Exactly. It's as easy as that.
Andrew: Ok, well, I think that covers it off. Thanks, everyone for watching today's video. Hopefully, you've got some value out of that. And as Ari was saying, Google My Business is an excellent free tool that everybody can use. And if you'd like to know more about SEO or these types of services, feel free to get in touch with Big Pond. Until next time, folks, thanks.
Tell Us What Challenges You Are Facing
Want more advice? Call us on 01292 844899. If you’re in a hurry, email claire@bigponddigital.co.uk and let’s set up a chat.
Until next time - good luck!
The Team @ Big Pond
Enjoyed this newsletter? Feel free to share it.