Having a healthy and relevant Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business – GMB) is vital for appearing in front of the right customers at the right time. Doing a quick health check of your profile intermittently is as important as the initial setup of your account. A Google Business Profile is important to help give customers vital information about your business. This will appear in Google Search when a customer searches for your business or a relevant keyword you rank highly for within Google Maps search in the local 3 pack.
Google Business Profile optimisation is essential and can form the basis of a local SEO strategy aimed to get more customers to visit your store, start a phone call, or just learn more about your business. Optimising your business profile can include quick tasks like making sure your business hours are accurate, Google Reviews have been responded to, and ensuring all your critical contact information is up to date.
Google states the importance of updating your information regularly by saying “Regular updates help ensure we can share the most accurate information with your potential customers”. To be able to check your Business Profile regularly, it first needs to be created. If you don’t already have a profile, you can learn how to get your business set up on Google Business Profile by clicking here.
What Is Google Business Profile?
Google Business Profile is the updated version of the previously titled tool Google My Business (GMB). You can manage how your local business listing appears across Google Search & Google Maps by creating a profile for your business. If your business serves customers at a physical location or within a service area, your profile will help customers find you. Optimizing your Google Business Profile can help you achieve higher ranking results in Google SERPs and aids more customer to discover the products and services that you provide.
How To Do A Business Profile Health Check?
Every manager needs to do a quick check to ensure their Google Business Profile is accurate to help potential customers get the best information for decision making purposes. The new Google Business Profile manager has been designed with the user experience in mind and is easy to use for any business owner or manager. Google has also recently added the option to directly edit your Business Profile from within Google Search rather than in the profile manager.
You can still make edits within the Google Business Manager tool to your business listing or make changes directly on Google Search instead. The below details are some of the most important factors you will need to check to ensure you have a healthy and relevant Google Business Profile. See the menu structure within the manager dashboard below and refer to the individual screenshots on where to make any changes.
Contact Details
It is essential to keep your contact details up to date so potential customers can contact you or visit your location. Most of the time your critical information like business location, phone number, or website won’t change very often if they ever do change. But, every time a modification happens it is crucial that your Google Business Profile is the first place you edit these new changes.
Business Hours
Your business hours are probably the most vital piece of information your potential customers want to find out when making a search. Having accurate times is vital for your customers to visit you at the correct times. If your times are wrong, customers will be angry and likely not return. Whenever there is a change in your hours for a particular day for any reason, such as a public holiday, make sure to change it within the settings on your profile. You can also display your business as temporarily or permanently closed within these settings.
Google Reviews
Checking all your incoming Google Reviews is a great idea because it can give you a gauge of how your customers feel about your business. More importantly, it gives you an opportunity to respond to customer reviews on Google. It is important to respond to negative reviews and also respond to positive reviews as this will help give your business a great reputation online.
Photos & Videos
Having up to date photos and potentially videos of your business can be a great way for customers to gain more quick insights about your business. The most important image will be your logo which is unlikely to be updated often, but the rest of your business may experience change. You may want to add more photos when you make business changes such as moving to a new location, installing new furniture, or upgrading your setup. Customer photos can also be uploaded so it is important to check these when they are new also. Videos can also give a more detailed look into business operations, however are not as commonly used across the GMB setup process as photos are.
Business Profile Insights
Within the business manager section, you can get some quick insights into your performance in Google Search and Google Maps results. This data can help you make any quick observations about your performance and if edits have led to any improvements over time.
Talk to the Experts Today
Having an optimised Google Business Profile can help achieve higher search ranking results across relevant searches. This helps all customers see your business online at the right time (when they are likely to purchase, call or visit). Even an occasional 5 minute health check can be the difference between gaining more customers and not.
The team at BeOnTop can provide help for all things relating to Google Business Profile tasks. Our team knows the ins and outs of the dashboard and management system within the new platform. Local SEO is one of our speciality areas and optimising your Google Business Profile certainly falls within this category. Contact us to learn more about how our skills can help your business today.