Google Business Profile Optimization for Business Growth
Owning a business has a ton of working aspects, some of which seem inconsequential but can actually play a significant role in the success of a company. Marketing is a huge part of running a business. If you aren’t getting the word out about what you are doing, no one is going to know about it. How do you expect to sell anything if no one who needs it has a way of reaching out to you? Before the digital age, people had phonebooks on hand to look up company phone numbers. Today, we simply perform a search on Google. Lucky for us, it’s easier than ever to find exactly what you need right at your fingertips.
As the search engine that outranks basically every other search engine in all aspects, it’s only fitting that Google would have its own type of business directory. This feature, called Google Business, gives businesses of all types the ability to easily provide interested individuals with information regarding their business, like service area, open and close times, location, and phone number. It also has space to put social profiles, give updates, show pictures, and include a link to your website. When a user does a discovery search regarding local businesses, the first thing they will scroll through is the Google Business Profiles that first show up.
It is in our nature to respond to the highest-ranking results on Google the most positively. We believe the things that are at the top are there for a good reason, and that reason is that they are the best. This is true for the most part seeing as reviews are a huge driving force in rankability. Asking customers for reviews is a great way to boost engagement. Even better is if you take the time to respond to them. You’ll want to respond to every good review with a note of appreciation and every bad review with a thank you for the suggestion and some kind of resolution.
If you haven’t yet made a profile on Google Business, we suggest that you do that now. Before you create one, make sure there hasn’t been one created for you already. It’s possible that Google has gathered enough information on your business that a profile was automatically generated and populated with details from your website or other sites. Another user could’ve also taken it upon themselves to do this for the sake of other customers.
While it is never guaranteed that you will reach the number one spot, any position that is above what you currently have is inevitably better. There are a number of things you can do to your profile in order to make it rank higher. Other than having a completed profile, consumer engagement is the focus to take when attempting a better rank. To better engage with users, turn on the chat feature. This will allow you to respond directly to people’s inquiries the moment they are made. You can also navigate to the questions section to see if anyone has asked you something. If there is a question, do your best to answer it as thoroughly as possible.
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