What is Google My Business? How to signup for Google My Business? How GMB can help my business?
Once done, how can I rank on the top of the GMB listing? How to optimize Google My Business listing?
No wonder, these are the few questions that must pop in your mind whenever someone discusses Google My Business.Ranking on the top of Google My Business (GMB) is easy; it doesn’t matter whether you have a small, medium or large business, by using proper strategies and techniques you can rank on top of the listing.
Here I have discussed some of the proven and practical techniques that I have used, and that has helped my company to rank on the top.
In the end, I will also tell you about the free tool provided by Google, which can help you a lot to improve your ranking.
Let’s start.
What is Google My Business (GMB)?
Google My Business is an easy and free tool for businesses or companies to manage and achieve their online presence across Google. It includes both search and maps. For the GMB listing, you have first to verify your business from Google.
Your business appears in the list when someone searches the service or products related to your business or when someone searches “near me” keyword: example- paint shop near me, restaurants near me, etc.
What are the benefits of GMB?
- It is free to use.
- Helps in connecting with a new customer
- It shows your company location in google maps.
- It is easy to rank your business.
- Builds the brand and increase the trust of your customers
- Increase the engagement of your customers
- You can also check how many calls and messages you have received.
What are the factors that affect your GMB listing?
The ranking of Google listing doesn’t affect by only one factor.
According to a study by MOZ local, some of the factors that affect your listing are-
- 25% effect of your listing details
- 17% effect of backlinks
- 16% effect of reviews
- 14% effect from the signals coming from the website
- Approximately 11% effect of citations
- Nearly 2.9% effect of social media engagement
Now, let us discuss how you can improve the above factors
How to improve your GMB listing?
It is easy to list and verify your business in GMB. The main effort comes to list your website on the top of the GMB listing, but why it is difficult as we already know that your ranking is not affected by only one factor there is the various factor which affects your ranking.
The factor that Google considers to rank listing on GMB
- Relevance
- Distance
- Prominence
Tips to boost your ranking are:
1- Complete your details
The first step is to complete all your GMB details because your details are the main ranking factor.
Correctly categorize your business because Google will show your business based on your category. You can also use keywords that you want to target.
Add photos of your office, staff, products, or photos with dealing with customers.
Open your GMB dashboard-click on the info button and complete all the details, also complete the advanced information section.
2- Get on the Google maps-
If your business is not located on Google maps; then, it affects your ranking.
For getting on the Google maps- search for your business in the maps if it appears then claim the listing and if it doesn’t appear, then add it as a place to maps and claim the listing.
3- Get a website
Google provides its free website, but still, I recommend you to make a good quality website why I am saying because Google receives 21% signals from the website. Make sure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly.
Properly optimize the title tag, Meta tag, Meta description. Use local keywords in your website.
Hence if your website is good and responsive, it will boost your ranking.
Put your website link in the GMB listing also inserts the Google map link on your website.
4- Get reviews-
Once you have delivered your service or products ask your customers to give the review because the 16% ranking of your website is affected by the reviews section.
Request your customers to give reviews, which include your keyword, business name, products, or services.
Example-“ Here is a Company name Truic- How to Start an LLC, they provide, a team of entrepreneurs who work to make business ownership accessible for everyone. “
5- Reply on reviews-
Majority of peoples reply to their customer reviews like “Thanks,” “Thanks a lot,” etc. Instead of this, you should include keywords for your products or services.
Example-“Thanks a lot, Mr. Alan for using our best home décor products in New York.”
Here the keyword is the best home décor products in New York.
6- Make citations-
When the details of your company like address, phone number, and location are mention in some websites like Facebook, Instagram, youtube, classifieds, free blog posting websites, business directories, etc. it is known as a citation.Avoid the bad citations, these are those citations that have outdated information about your company. Like the wrong address, phone number, or location.
There are many websites on which you can create a free account and can add your company details.
Examples- Indiamart, Just dial, etc. there are many websites on which you can make your free account and can add your company details.
You can request your customers to share your company reviews on their social media accounts.
You can also use Quora. You should give answers to the questions related to your business or services, and you can provide your company information.
Now, let us discuss the free tool provided by Google. This tool is called insights that can help you to monitor your GMB listing and also helps in ranking.
What are Insights?
It is a free tool provided by Google by which you can monitor your GMB listing and can make necessary changes after analyzing the report.
Insights show how customers searched for your business, the number of calls or messages they made, etc.
For accessing the insights, go to your GMB dashboard. On the left side, you can easily find out the insights option.
Click on insights
First, a pie chart will appear. It has three sections and has colors blue, green, and yellow.
You can set information based on the month, week, and day.
The green section shows how many people directly search your business. Maybe they already know your company, or they are your existing customers.
The blue section shows how many people search for the service or product that you are selling and then visit your website. They are also considered as an unknown audience.
Yellow color shows that your business listing appears when someone searches for other brands.
You will see an important part below the pie chart these are queries and users
A Query is when someone searches a keyword, and your listing appears you can see the counting. You can also check the negative keywords, and you can remove it.
The next section is of photos; it shows the views on photos that you have uploaded.
Last section photo quantity. This section shows the number of photos that you have uploaded. It also shows the amount of
With this report, you can analyze which factor you have to improve and make necessary changes; it will improve your ranking.
Author’s Bio
Hitesh Khurana is a Digital Marketing Executive at Quantum IT innovation, a reputed NJ SEO Company in the USA. Along with writing for the company he is an admirer of classic literature, drama, and a true cinephile. You can find him writing meaningful poetry when he is not busy with his dog.
