How Do I Boost My Google Business Page?

A Google business page is a free online marketing resource from the search giant that lets you control how your business or company appears on local search results. Besides helping you generate web traffic, it also helps you attract visits to your physical location by allowing you to appear on Google Maps.

However, simply claiming your Google Business Profile (GBP) and filling in the basic details about your business is not enough to help you reach more potential customers. To help you give your profile a boost, here’s a quick guide from our team at Springhill Marketing.

Take Advantage of GBP Tools

Previously known as Google My Business or GMB, Google Business Profile offers a wide array of marketing tools that can help you build better brand awareness. Here are a few of them: 

1. Google Marketing Kit

Google Marketing Kit is an excellent help for increasing your online presence. It allows you to create posters, stickers and social media posts you can use to promote products or events. The best part is that these marketing tools are free to use.

With the Google Marketing Kit, you can unleash your creativity to entice more people to check out your business online and offline. For instance, you can customise posters by featuring snippets of positive customer reviews. Then, you can share them on social media to advertise your business.

2. Google Posts

Google Posts allow you to promote events, new products, discounts, and other exciting deals using images, videos, and call-to-action buttons. An excellent feature of Google Posts is that they come with an analytics feature that lets you determine how people interacted with your posts. You can use the data you obtain to improve your GBP content to increase user engagement.

Consider these pointers to make the most of Google Posts:

• Ensure that each post is high-quality.
• Always check your posts for broken characters, irrelevant information, and spelling and grammar errors.
• See that your posts are respectful and non-offensive.
• Incorporate engaging visuals and relevant links.
• Ensure that your links always point to trusted websites.

3. Local Favourites Programme

Google’s Local Favourites programme provides digital and physical badges to the top-performing local businesses per category. Receiving a badge is a great boost to your local SEO campaign as it lets prospects know that you belong to the top 5% of businesses in your niche or industry.

Leverage the Special Attributes

The new Google business page allows owners to showcase unique or special information about their enterprises. For instance, they can highlight on their profile that their business is Black-owned or woman-led.
In particular, healthcare-related businesses can take advantage of additional attributes, such as:

• Informing customers if they provide online care.
• Offering clients a direct method for booking and receiving online care.

The special attributes available for your GBP will depend on your business’s primary category. Ensure that you choose the appropriate category to find the special attributes applicable to your business.

Encourage Reviews

Customer reviews are amongst the most effective ways to grow your GBP. Not only do they build your credibility, but they also help you attract potential customers. Research showed that 89% of consumers are “highly” or “fairly” likely to choose businesses that respond to online reviews. Therefore, encouraging customers to review your business and responding to them should be amongst your top GBP optimisation strategies.

1. Reach out to your customers

Because online reviews do not show up overnight, you should proactively ask former customers to say something good about your business. You can reach out to them by:

• Sending them an email or postcard.
• Asking them personally after a successful transaction.
• Using review management platforms.

2. Consider rewarding reviewers

Consider providing incentives to encourage people to review your business. For example, you can offer special coupons or discounts on their next purchase.

3. Ask reviewers to provide as much detail as possible

Most consumers are more inclined to trust honest and genuine reviews. Therefore, ensure that your review requests encourage former customers to be honest in their testimonials. You should also ask them to provide more details or photos of the work or product you sold them.

4. Always respond to negative reviews

You should never dismiss negative reviews just because they don’t tell you what you want to hear. Otherwise, it would create bad publicity and hurt your business.

When a disgruntled customer leaves a negative review on your Google business page, you should reach out to them as soon as possible. Apologise and empathise with them. If possible, offer ways to improve the situation. This would show your prospects that you value your customers even after they are done with your business.

Start Crafting a Robust Google Business Profile

A highly optimised Google Business Profile is an excellent tool for building better brand awareness and a more substantial online presence. Best of all, you don’t have to spend anything to use it. All you need to do is provide all the necessary information about your business and take the time to craft a robust optimisation strategy to make the most of your GBP.

If you don’t have the time to optimise your business profile on Google, we at Springhill Marketing are happy to help. We can provide you with the SEO solutions you require to dominate local search results and drive more traffic to your site. Please speak with our team today.