You may have noticed that you’re getting a few more new customers these days, and they’re saying things like “hey, you had a good review on Google Maps”.
Your response is “What?”, “Review?”, “huh?”
It’s okay, but you should know that Google itself, created a special business directory listing of your business in its Google My Business system, or also called GMB.
It will also collect reviews that people leave on your listing and rank you above your competitors if you have more positive reviews. It’s all free.
If you neglect your GMB listing, you are leaving money on the table.
To easily remedy this situation there are a few things that you need to do:
- Claim your GMB listing.
- Add some images and info on your listing
- Update the hours of operation info
- Generally encourage your customers to leave good reviews
Generally if you listing has not been claimed you’re going to see a “is this my business?” link. Just click it and follow the directions and in about a week or sooner you will have full control over your listing. Treat your GMB listing as gold.
Regularly take some photos of inside your business and upload them to your listing. This shows Google that you are a thriving, interesting place that people will love to visit and they will reward you will greater prominence over those business that don’t understand what GMB’s value is.
It is important to exactly enter the NAP (name, address, phone) info exactly as it is listed on your website, down to capitalization, abbreviations, and punctuations. This way Google will not confuse you will other listings, and potentially reduce your position in regard to other listings.
You can leave a sign at your checkout counter reminding people to leave a review. Of course, you can’t try to incentivize customers to do this, such as “bribe” them with discounts, etc. Google will not like that and may penalize you for trying to game the system. Google is looking for a legitimate and actual customer comments as possible, and not “paid” ones.
Now there is more GMB optimization that you can do, but this should get you off to a great start. You can go to Google’s own info page for more information.
We at GrowthDev also specialize with improving the GMB listing. Call or email us about a free GMB consultation to see how we might be able to help you with this free and powerful resource.
Content Creator online for 25 years, specializing in web design, traffic generation services, and overall business optimization. I specialize in making the complex ideas easy to understand and help make them profitable for other creatives and entrepreneurs alike.
