Ensuring that your business appears on Google Maps are important for long-term survival.
Prospective customers are often skeptical of business with little or no online presence.
Fortunately, Google Maps provides one of the easiest and fastest ways to get online.
Business owners now have the opportunity to market their goods and services in real-time to anyone with a mobile device.
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What Is Google Maps Marketing?
Google Maps Marketing just to optimize the presence of marketing your business on Google Maps.
The goal is simple: to rank higher in the search, you have the opportunity to significantly improve your business.
The better the optimization of your profile, the better your chance to appear on Google Maps search for your type of business in your area.
Why Is Google Maps Marketing So Important?
Google handles about 3.5 billion searches per day and accounted for nearly 88% of all mobile searches.
Google Local search also directly translates into sales with 76% of those who are looking for local products to visit the store during the day.
Google Maps marketing can affect the way your business and how Google views or if it appears in organic search in what is known as the 3-pack.
Google Map Results (local 3-pack) appears at the top of this page in Google Search.
Google Maps can deliver thousands of potential customers to your business.
Unless your business is ranked in 3-pack, your chances are found exponentially lower.
That’s why Google Maps Marketing is generally regarded as the most important aspect of SEO work locally.
Setting up & Optimizing Your Google My Business (GMB) Listing
Creating a Google My Business (GMB) listing is totally free.
This is because it technically isn’t an advertisement at all – you are simply letting Google know that your business exists.
That said, the end goal is to get your business to rank higher than your competitors.
Setting Up Google My Business
To set up your Google My Business listing:
- Sign in to Google and go to https://www.google.com/business/
- Then locate or create a listing for your business. Sometimes other factors or inputs have led to an impromptu assumption listing about your business. Make sure you claim and correct it if that happened.
- Fill out all of the information to the best of your ability.
- Make sure to select the correct category and to add a contact.
- Verify your account. This can be done with Google via phone, email, or traditional mail.
- Add quality photos.
- Double-check all of your information.
How to Rank Better in Google Maps
Google Maps takes into account a number of factors when deciding how to rank results.
Geographical distance from people doing searches and business categories relevant to their search is the most obvious.
Perhaps more important is how complete and accurate GMB your list. It could be a tie-breaker between you and your competitors to determine who appears in the search.
Finally, a positive sentiment (good reviews) can be the deciding factor.
Getting Good Reviews
Many companies have developed systems around the cultivation of positive reviews.
Some will ask customers directly, at the end of the transaction, to give them a review.
Other businesses put a request to review a striking, at checkout. Some have even used the QR code.
One effective method is to leave a review request, on a business card, attached to a “Thank You” memento. Something as simple as a free air freshener can go far.
In all your promotional materials, it is good business practice to provide a link for customers to leave reviews on Google.
What About Bad Reviews?
Calmly handle bad reviews. Working hard to cope well with the other reviews.
When you get a bad review, apologize, accept responsibility and offer to make it right; even if it’s not your fault.
It is a losing proposition to get defensive or aggressive in your reply.
A bad review gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your professionalism, helping to reduce potential damage.
Posting on Google as Your Business
This is an underused feature.
Business owners can “publish … offers, events, products, and services directly to Google Search and maps.”
This can be another effective way to stand apart from your competitors.
Google Maps Optimization Checklist
To give your business a better chance of showing up in Google Maps for relevant searches, just follow the checklist below.
- Claim or create a listing for your business.
- Fill out all of the information:
>Correct service area and address.
>Business hours/workdays.
>Website / URL for them to make a purchase.
>List your specific offerings. Clearly and simply. Try to add keywords in naturally when possible. - Pick the most relevant and common categories for your business.
- Ensure information is consistent across the web.
- Add high-quality photos.
- Double-check all of your information.
- Cultivate good reviews.
- Talk about your business in Google My Business.
- List your business in other directories.
- Use analytics to adapt your strategies.
Paid Advertising & Local Search Ads
Google gives you the tools to target your local area with local search advertising.
These are paid advertisements that can help you appear at the top of a Google search page or Map App when someone searches for relevant services.
If you are struggling to bring in customers and can not wait for your organic efforts to pay off, you may want to consider a paid advertisement.
Many businesses have had great success in using local search advertising on Google. It can be a perfect complement to organic marketing efforts.
Tracking Your Google Maps Marketing Performance
Tracking your performance on Google Maps conducted through the analysis offered by Google My Business account.
It is necessary to evaluate your current web presence and optimizing it, move forward
The following are the key metrics you should pay close attention to:
The Google Services That Customers Use to Find Your Business
An important metric to consider is the type of search that leads to your website.
It will let you know the volume of users who are looking for you by name, vs them find you through a keyword relevant to your brand, location, and industry.
This can help you gauge the percentage of new customers than keep coming to your site through Google.
Where Customers View Your Business on Google
This section will let you know the frequency that you are being found on general search vs map listings.
Taken in conjunction with the first metric you can gauge the general success of your Google Map Listings in attracting new customers.
As you make changes, monitor these stats to ensure you are making the right decisions and moving in a positive direction.
Listing Visitor Action Taken
“Customer Action” will show what actions people are taking in response to your list.
You will find if your list to help people find your location, your website, or lead to some form of contact.
This is probably the most important metric because you start optimizing your list.
Work to improve customer engagement and interaction is the best path to success.
Where Customers Are Coming From
“Directions demand” showing where the customer asked for directions to your business from.
With this information, you can begin to localize and better target your marketing efforts more and may adjust your target keywords.
The Performance of Your Photos
“View photos and quantity of photos” shows how your photos are performing compared with competing businesses.
It also shows a mixture of photos from you than those posted by your customers.
Humans react positively to attractive visuals, so you should take the time to capture the best possible picture of your business.
The Final Takeaway
While getting the basics right is simple enough, fine-tuning will set you apart from the competition.
Pay attention to your analytics.
The best way to market yourself across all Google apps is to:
- Keep your information up to date.
- Keep your social proof (customer reviews) positive.
- Make certain that your visual presentation is always top-notch.
If you want help getting started, drop us a line via email or just reply in the comments section of this post.
Source: searchenginejournal