Do you own a business? Offer a service? Sell products? Do you have a Google Profile attached to a Google My Business page? If you do, well done! You will be showing up in Google searches and being found by the people who need your business to solve their problems. Google prefers to provide information about businesses who use their tools and Google My Business is an essential one.
What is a Google Profile?
This is what a Google Profile looks like:
To create a Google Profile, all that is required is a Name, Location and Category. Google Profiles appear in Maps and in the local search results.
How to find out if your business has a Google Profile?
The easiest way to find out if your business has a Google Profile, is to simply do a Google search on your business name, location and phone number.
Your business has a Google Profile, but you are not sure how?
It is possible for your business to have a profile on Google that you didn’t create. Just like adding a place to Google maps. Any person, or even an automated listing generator, can create a Google Profile for your business. This profile can also be populated with information that is either provided by a user to Google or that Google pulls from across the internet.
For many business owners it can be a surprise to find their business listed in a Google search. While this can be viewed as a job that they didn’t have to do, it can also be alarming to know that anyone can suggest changes to your listing.
Picture this – You search for your business on Google and find ‘Permanently Closed’ marked across the Google Profile. Feels Scary, right?!
How do I get control of my business’s Google Profile?
Google allows businesses to control their profile through the Google My Business (GMB) page. This is a free service, and it is extremely important that every business has one. We will go into more detail on how to claim your Google Profile a bit further into this article, but first, let’s learn more about a Google My Business (GMB) page.
What is a Google My Business (GMB) page?
GMB enables you to manage your presence on Google. With 3.5 billion searches being performed on Google each day it is VITAL you have control of your Google Profile. A GMB page provides a dashboard that gives you full control of all your essential business details including opening/closing times, contact details and a link to your website.
The GMB dashboard looks like this:
Click here to learn about each section.
How do I set up and/or take ownership of my Google My Business account?
When you were a kid, did you ever read the Choose Your Own Adventure books? Well in this section, you’re going to have to use Google to see which adventure (or in this case set of steps) that you need to take.
Go to Google and type in the name of your business, location and phone number. Follow the instructions below based on which best fits what you found:
- My business name doesn’t appear:
Once you’ve confirmed that your business doesn’t have a Google Profile or Google My Business page, follow these steps to complete a full set up.
- My business name is showing:
- Click on your business name profile
- If you see a ‘Own This Business?’ you need to claim the listing:
- If you don’t see Own this Business? It probably means someone else has ownership of it (eg) previous business owner, an employee. This means that you will need to lodge a request to claim it. To do this follow the steps at this link.
Give your GMG a Spring Clean.
There’s no disputing that the last few months have been crazy for many businesses. Thankfully, things are finally starting to turn around, making now the perfect time to review your GMG page.
With this in mind, here’s your Spring Clean List:
- Go to your GMG Dashboard.
- Check your Info page to see if everything listed is current:
- Opening hours
- Contact Numbers
- Website (Does the link work?)
- Appointments (eg) Link to your online booking app)
- Menus
- Products
- Services (Remember Google updates these automatically based on sources like feedback from customers, so make sure these are relevant.)
- Payment types (If you offer Afterpay, is it listed here?)
- Business description (Is it telling your audience everything they need to know about your business?)
- Click on Posts – Are you using this area? If not, it’s time you started!
- Do you have photos included in your listing? If yes, well done! But do they need updating? If you answered no to this question, PLEASE go and load some photos of your business. Your customers want to see what the inside of your store looks like. They may wish to know how big your parking area is for example. We are all very visual creatures, so go and post those photos.
There is so much to gain from having a GMB account, and frankly if your business doesn’t have one, you’re missing out.
Feeling pumped to get started? We have create a free, downloadable guid “Your easy guide to the GMB dashboard” which you can download here