Google My Business

Google My Business
Essential for local business

Google My Business, what is it and how can it be beneficial to your business? You’re no doubt familiar with Google, after all, who isn’t?

But what about Google beyond a simple search, did you know there are other aspects that can be used to boost your company’s profile and enhance its visibility?

Google My Business (GMB) is one of these and can help you to grow your digital presence.

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EFOUR DIGITAL MARKETING GBP Quick Links

What is Google My Business?

Google My Business is a tool through which your business can optimise and personalise its online profile to expand its reach. This free service gives you the opportunity to customise, manage, edit and enhance the information given in a Google search result or within Maps.

This makes it easier for customers to locate your business on Google and understand more about you at a glance. It also aids in verifying and legitimising your business in customers eyes, enhancing your chances of being contacted.

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What If I Already Have A Business Profile?

Having a business profile is not the same as having a GMB account. The creation of a GMB account claims ownership of your business profile and allows you to edit it. A standard business profile is basic and automatically populated by Google in search results for both Google and Google maps.

It provides the business name, location, and category and may contain information auto-populated from other areas of the web. Against this profile, customers can freely leave reviews, add photos and ask questions. Without a Google My Business account in place to claim ownership of this auto-generated listing, you will have no ability to moderate or reply to anything linked with it.

In short, when you create a Google My Business it is not taking the place of your business profile, but rather acting as a tool to let you manage it.

Why Do I Need "GBP"?

Firstly, if you do not claim ownership of your Google business profile you run the risk of someone else doing it. Additionally, not actively spending time to create a professional Google listing can be detrimental to your business. From a customer perspective, you may look less trustworthy or legitimate as a business.

Perhaps more worryingly, without a Google My Business account set up, you also will have zero control over any misinformation linked to your business. For example, imagine a competitor company or one with a similar name has a terrible reputation, Google could mistakenly match their negative write-ups or reviews to your business.

Ensuring you have claimed your Google business profile through the creation of a Google My Business account ensures you have control over your image and can engage meaningfully with customers. Let’s also not forget that Google My Business is a critical element of local SEO, so keeping it accurate and updated is incredibly important for capturing local business.

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When edited to incorporate keywords, your GMB Profile can also boost your search engine optimisation and (SEO) ranking.

Grow your client base with Google My Business

Using Your Google My Business Account For Local Marketing

And, as they are linked, you are able to push updates from your GMB account through to your business profile. All of this is handled through the Google My Business dashboard.

Customer Engagement

You can utilise your Google My Business account to interact with customers in a number of ways. Through it, you can enable questions, respond to reviews, set up alerts and even an instant chat service. And, as they are linked, you are able to push updates from your GMB account through to your business profile.

All of this is handled through the Google My Business dashboard.

Personalise your business

Rather than an uninspiring, bland and basic business profile, GMB can be used to highlight your best features. Include links to your website, a cover photo or photos, videos, business hours and more. All of this will be available on the search engine results page (SERP) for an eye-catching and impactful first impression.

Use The Analytics

Within your Google My Business dashboard, there is an analytics tab, this tab provides a wealth of helpful information. Learn more about how customers found you (i.e. through maps or search) their behaviours while viewing your listing (what they clicked on) and how your listing compares to the competition.

These insights can help you further edit and modify your listing to be optimally effective and capture more customers.

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Customer Engagement is important to EFOUR

Invest in local SEO

If you’ve invested in search engine optimization for your website, it is just as important to invest in local SEO through your GMB posts. We know Google loves a search algorithm and GMB is no different from a standard search – many factors will influence a post’s performance.

Targeted, local SEO can give you relevant keywords that you can incorporate and leverage to gain more visibility in your area. Ensuring customers can easily find you in a local search and reach out.

What your Google Business Profile Should Include

Wondering which information about your business is the most beneficial to include in your Google My Business listing?

A standard GMB business listing needs to make the most important information about your business available at a single glance. It should include:

Your businesses name and location (full address)
Phone number
Alternate contact information such as an email
A link to your website
Operating hours
Professional photos
Reviews

When determining where to rank your GMB listing Google will prioritise those with their name, address and phone number accurately posted.

Far from being limited to just profiling your business, Google My Business can also be used for posting about other things including:

Adding Google Business Profile managed services as part of your Local SEO Strategy makes your Digital Strategy a power house in lead generation

Google is heavily focused on user experience and delivering accurate information is an essential component of this.

Promotions

Make it easy for customers to view current sales or special offers from your business using Promotions.

Products

Provide more details about the products or services you offer via the product tab. Here viewers can gain access to information such as specifications, features, benefits, images and more for the selected product.

Updates

New product or service? Change in staff, procedure or pricing? Share this information via GMB using videos, photos and a brief description to ensure it’s not missed.

Events

Hosting an event or participating in one? Share this with ease via GMB – event posts provide the name of the event, times, dates and details of what the event is about.

Marketing posts are only visible on returned search results for a maximum of 7 days. So it is worthwhile having a large amount of content prepared in advance.

Each of these post styles can help expand your reach or achieve your goals sooner, however, it can take time to find what best resonates with your audience.

This is why the analytics provided in the Google My Business dashboard are so beneficial.

When used intelligently, Google My Business is a powerful and effective marketing tool – best of all, it’s free! For best outcomes related to posts, we recommend engaging an SEO specialist that understand the analytics and keywords in depth.

This can ensure your posts hit the mark first go and easily stand out from other businesses like yours.

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Getting Started with Google Business Profile

If you have not yet claimed your business, the process is simple.

Log in to the Google account associated with your business.
Select the ‘business’ tab.
Enter your business name, business location, business category, contact number, website , and anything else relevant to your business.

Following this, you will be required to verify your listing, this can be done by having a code sent to your nominated number or via post. For fast results, we recommend the former.

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Your verified what comes next?

As soon as you are verified, you will be able to access your GMB dashboard and check the accuracy of your listing. Ensure it includes the essentials as listed above as well as being linked in the appropriate category for local results. If linked in the inappropriate category it will mean you are competing for irrelevant searches which will be detrimental to both your ranking and your bottom line.

Unsure which category you should be in? The best way to know which category you should be listed in is to speak with an SEO expert, such as those at EFOUR Digital Marketing.

Add A Business Description

Once you know the essential NAP details are accurate, focus on building an image of your business through a brief outline of what you offer. You want anyone searching for you or associated keywords to know exactly how you match their needs.

Respond To And Encourage Further Reviews

Did you know that 93% of customers will check online reviews before making contact or committing to a purchase? While we all prefer positive reviews, even negative ones can be beneficial to SEO. Responding to reviews or addressing concerns raised in them shows your business cares and is committed to the customer.

Requesting reviews and responding to them in a considered, authentic manner helps to raise your organic rankings and build trust.

Choose Your Photos

We touched on this earlier, but it must be stressed how important it is to select professional, relevant and engaging photos or videos for your GMB posts. Before a single word is read on your post, your chosen image will be making an impression on the viewer.

Imagery can be a powerful tool in demonstrating points of difference between you and a competitor. They can also give customers a behind the scenes look at your company and humanise it – making customers feel more comfortable and confident to contact you.

Choose photos and video that clearly shows your branding, logo, smiling staff and customers and anything else you feel uniquely represents your business. For GMB posts uploaded videos must be 30 seconds or shorter so be sure to make it count!

Leverage Questions And Answers

A great way to build your reputation as a leader in your field is to turn on the question and answers section of your GMB post. Answering questions that many people likely want the answer to draws more attention to you and shows your commitment to the customer and their experience with you.

Only activate this if you can consistently respond to queries however as unanswered questions will have the opposite effect.

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Ready To Harness The Power Of Google My Business

At EFOUR Digital Markerting, we are skilled experts in all things SEO and that includes utilising Google My Business to elevate your business online profile. While it may seem overwhelming or confusing to set up and implement, GMB is second nature to us. As GMB continues to grow and diversify as a marketing strategy, it is essential that your business include it as part of a winning SEO strategy.

Through careful analysis of your current local SEO standing, EFOUR Digital Markerting can pinpoint areas for change and maximise your ranking potential. Our affordable, effective and proactive approach to SEO and GMB ensures your business is positioned for success.

WHY CHOOSE US EFOUR Web Development Specialists

“

More Visibility, More Leads, More Clients …. this is just what we do!

WHY CHOOSE US

As a local, family-owned business ourselves we understand the need for transparency and integrity at all times. We have years of experience in developing powerful SEO strategies that incorporate Google My Business and guarantee to boost your Google ranking.

At EFOUR your success is our success, contact our team today by phone on 1300 263 806 or by email to learn more about how we can help to optimize and enhance your online presence.

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Some of the results you can expect

IT Services Brisbane

PRODUCTS
NEW WEBSITE
GROWTH ACCELERATE PLUS

Brisbane

24 months ago, IT Services Brisbane had one part time employee with Director Hollie O’Byrne working full time. After 18 months working with EFOUR they are a 10 man team and looking to expand through Australia.

500%

Increase in revenue

20x

Return on marketing investment

80%

Increase in visibility

Enable Exercise

PRODUCTS
GBP LOCAL EXPANSION

Sydney

Enable Exercise engaged EFOUR Digital marketing to provide Managed Google Business Profile services. Within 2 months of starting Enable Exercise had an increase of 300% in Leads and have recently had to change business locations to accomodate their growth in their team.

325%

Increase in Leads

7x

Return on marketing investment

210%

Increase in Google Maps Visibility

Critical Care

PRODUCTS
GBP LOCAL ACTIVATION
NEW WEBSITE

Brisbane

Critical Care initially engaged EFOUR to provide Google Business Profile management. This turned into a new website build and Google Profile management. This has resulted in 400% increase in leads.

410%

Increase in leads

15x

Return on marketing investment

230%

Increase in Google Maps Visibility

Some recent websites we’ve built

Russell's Garage Doors

IT Services Brisbane

Direct Focus Solutions

Locations we service

Testimonials

“Hey Damen – The vast majority of times you receive an email from me is because either (a) I need something or (b) something’s wrong.

So this time I’m emailing you because something is right! And I want to give you some proof of the great training you offered on navigating the back end of the website.

Our old website included a link to download a free eBook that I had written called “Discover Your Life’s True Purpose” and the download was linked to an “ebook signup” list in Mail Poet.

We decided that we did not want this to be part of our new website as we wanted to keep the focus more on coach training.

However, over the last few days I had been thinking that it would still be good offer this resource on the “Nero News” that we send out from time to time via EDM. However, I also wanted people to sign up to the ebook list, so I could monitor how many were responding.

So I….

Uploaded the e book into the media library
Created a new Ninja form called “download e-book and linked the e-book and added Mail Poet signup and linked it to the e-book signup list .
Created a new page called e book sign-up and added an image of the ebook plus a heading and the ninja form. I published the page, but didn’t add to the menu because I don’t want the page on the front end of the website.

So now it’s all ready to do be inserted as a link in the promo for it in the next Neuro News!

Mate, I really don’t see myself as tech savvy at all, but I manage to work all this out because you showed me enough to do so. So thanks heaps! 😊”

Mark Setch

Director of Training Neurocoaching Australia

“If you need a great looking website, that gets you results, you can’t go past EFOUR. They know what they are talking about and follow through, at an affordable price. Their after sales service is also second to none. Do yourself a favour and give this team a call.”

Sharon Capizzi

Owner, She's Sew Creative, Sydney

“The EFOUR team have been absolutely fantastic to deal with in the development of our new site. We are most appreciative of their patience when working through our endless last-minute alterations in the lead-up to the launch.

They never missed a beat and I look forward to working with them again.”

Sean Ryan

Marketing and Digital Engagement Manager, BGW Group, Brisbane

“IT Services Brisbane recently EFOUR Digital Marketing to create a new website, including SEO, for our company. Their expertise in web design and SEO was outstanding, every member of the team provided exceptional service and all followed through.

What stood out, was the process from concept to delivery was very structured and results-focused. We felt listened to, whilst also being provided clear and concise recommendations.

Our website has already more than paid for itself. We have increased market share far more than we thought possible in our identified target suburbs.

If you are looking to increase your business exposure and can handle the extra workload that will come from the increased exposure, I highly recommend speaking to the team EFOUR.”

Hollie O’Byrne

Director, IT Services Brisbane

“In 2019 we built and commenced operating a small guesthouse. We decided to engage EFOUR Digital Marketing to construct our website. They are an extremely efficient company with excellent communication and are Australian owned and operated, which was important to us.

They also set up out Channel Manager and Property Management System, as well as connecting 4 Online Travel Agencies. This had us up and running in a short amount of time. As we were new to the hospitality business, we could never have completed this in the time EFOUR took to be online and receiving bookings.”

Phil Plasto

Phil Plasto | BnB Owner | Silverdown Guesthouse | Orange, NSW

Our awards & accreditation

2018

2019

2019 & 2020

2019

2020

Frequently Asked Questions

No, there is no rule in Google or elsewhere that says you must claim your Google business profile or invest in optimising it. It is, however, highly recommended to do so. GMB is a free marketing tool that can significantly impact both your reach and ranking within a Google search, therefore it just makes sense to utilise it and take advantage of it.

Should you choose not to use the GMB tool to manage your Google business profile you also run the risk of having incorrect business details listed online. Should your contact information, location or description be wrong, or should you have negative reviews linked to your business you will be unable to respond to them. Google may even assign irrelevant information to your business in error that further damages your ranking.

So while you do not have to, it is highly recommended to. At the very least you should be claiming your Google business profile and editing for correctness.

The short answer is yes.

However, when you add another task to your already busy work schedule it can be a little daunting, time consuming and sometimes tough to keep up with changes.

GMB performs best when crafted around keywords and local search data, without insights from professionals your posts are unlikely to reach the audience you intend or generate the leads you’d hoped for.

Understanding the intricacies of GMB and associated SEO is something that takes significant time and dedication, something which you are no doubt already engaging in for the day to day running of your business. When you work with EFOUR Digital Marketing, we work collaboratively with you to understand your goals and then do the work to ensure you achieve them.

This ensures you are free from the stress or hassle of implementing GMB practices and better able to prepare for the business it generates. This is particularly true for those who manage multiple businesses in different locations within the same GMB account.

Incredibly, GMB is an entirely free marketing tool! Google leverages zero fees. Why? It is to their benefit to have you correct and optimise your listing as this enhances the customer experience, something Google prioritises above all else.

The only costs associated are when you seek help with the management of your GMB posts and the creation of their content. These costs also cover the analysis and research of your current ranking and that of your competitors. This ensures the set-up of your GMB is worth the effort and that your future posts are quality content that contributes positively to the growth of your business.

Investing in GMB as part of your digital marketing strategy is an essential step to ensuring your business is more visible and that you are generating the leads you desire for your business. To learn more about the costs involved with optimising and managing your GMB account, simply speak with the specialists at EFOUR Digital Marketing. We tailor our SEO packages to suit your needs and goals.

Expertly executed GMB helps to grow your business by enhancing your visibility – when you are seen, you generate more leads and therefore more profit. GMB makes your business the star attraction in returned search results and draws viewers in, encouraging them to click through to learn more.

Managing your Google business listing and ensuring it is accurate is simply the first step. When you also include a messaging service, question and answers or review replies, you appear as trustworthy and invested in your customers. This also helps to verify and legitimise your business – consider your own Google searches, do you choose the result that looks professional and offers relevant information? Or do you choose the one that looks unfinished and lacks details?

From a Google perspective, optimising your listings to benefit the customer is exactly what their algorithm wants. When you have relevant information that meets the search criteria and the customer needs, your ranking is improved, further boosting your visibility.

GMB is its own form of SEO – local SEO. Unlike on-page SEO which is a broader approach to widening reach, the focus of local SEO is on building reliability and reputation in a specific local area. It helps to match customers with a product or service in their preferred location.

Both local SEO via GMB and on-page SEO benefit from using keywords and specific formatting to please Google’s algorithms and increase your ranking. These two SEO types go hand in hand and should form part of a well-balanced SEO strategy. When a viewer clicks on your call to action (CTA) on your Google post this improves your organic search results and contributes to the overall ranking of your website.

This is why even for online businesses that may not necessarily feel GMB will be beneficial, it is still necessary for building better overall SEO.

Just like website SEO that incorporates crafted content or regular blog posts, it can take time to see the results of your GMB strategy. This also depends on the age of the GMB, how many reviews it currently has.

Google’s algorithms are constantly changing and there are thousands upon thousands of other businesses around Australia implementing GMB for the same reasons you are. This is part of the reason why it can take time – the competition can be fierce. Having skilled and experienced digital marketing experts on board ensures your time is not wasted and that your content is best positioned to rise more quickly.

Ongoing analysis will also help determine which posts perform best and who they resonate with. This then informs and helps develop your continued GMB strategy.

Google My Business