Business Owners: Update Your Google My Business Page

Marketing your business means doing many things, whether it’s creating a website, writing content, networking, advertising, or building your brand. But there is one thing many small business owners overlook, and it’s probably the most critical step: updating your Google business profile.

When potential customers go to find you online, they are likely to Google you. As you may know, Google will show them a box to the right with your business name, hours of operation, phone number, and address. What if those details are wrong?

How to Fix Your Business Listing

The first step to make sure your business is to claim your listing. You can do that by visiting this page: https://www.google.com/business/. Once you’ve set it up, you can manage your page. You’ll also receive emails about monthly site visits and reminders to update hours for holidays. Alternatively, you can click “suggest an edit” on the search results page. While you can and should do that if you like, you’ll gain far more control by claiming your business. (By the way, Google My Business replaces Google Places, if you used to maintain that page.)

Google My Business also enables you to publish posts and images. While it’s not clear how valuable that content is or isn’t, we recommend you post a few pictures if possible to round out the listing. If you do write something you can write up to 1,500 characters, but most people looking at these listings just need the quick info, so keep it short.

Get Google Reviews

Also, be sure to keep asking your amazing clients for reviews! Both quality and quantity count; you want lots of reviews, and mostly four or five stars. Don’t be upset if you have a few negative ones; it’s normal not to be able to please every single customer and having at least one of those looks more natural. After all, if you see a business with only five-star reviews, are you suspicious that only their friends wrote something? While Yelp and Facebook reviews are nice, Google will help the most with your SEO.

Do you have questions about your Google My Business page? Contact us for help!