Google is the world's most-visited website. The site currently holds more than 92% of search engine market share. Creating a Google Business Profile (formerly known as Google My Business) is an of import way to concenter new customers to your business concern through Google search and Maps.

Bonus: Go the free template to easily craft a detailed profile of your ideal customer and/or target audition.

What is Google Business concern Profile (f.k.a. Google My Business)?

Google Business Profile is a gratis business organization listing from Google. It allows you to provide details and photos of your business, including your location, services, and products.

Creating this complimentary profile is a great fashion to increase your visibility across Google services. Information from your Google Business Profile may announced in Google Search, Google Maps, and Google Shopping.

Google Business Profile is only available to businesses that have contact with customers. This includes businesses with a physical location (like a restaurant or store) and businesses that provide services by meeting with clients in other locations (similar consultants or plumbers).

If you lot take an online-only business, you'll accept to stick to other Google tools like Google Ads and Google Analytics.

Why yous demand a Google My Business account

Get discovered in Google (and Google Maps)

Whether you're looking for foot traffic or web traffic, Google is the ultimate search referrer. A Google Business Profile helps ensure that people find your business when looking for products and services similar yours in their local area.

Your Google My Business listing shows searchers where and how to visit your business. A Google Business Profile also improves your local SEO. In particular, a listing for a local business is more likely to appear when people search for a nearby business using Google Maps.

Mary's on Davie Google My Business listing

Control your online business organization information

Your Google My Business profile allows you to control and update your contact information, business hours, and other essential details as needed.

Y'all can mail updates to share that you've expanded services, temporarily airtight, or fully reopened (an especially useful feature during emergencies like COVID-19). Google Business Profiles have strong local SEO, so the information you share will rank above third-party sites that might take out-of-date details.

Build trust through reviews

Reviews are a fundamental element of social proof, and a meaningful manner to build trust and credibility.

Google'south combined star rating and space for detailed reviews allows customers to share as much or as piddling information near their experience with your business as they like. All of it helps future potential customers determine which businesses to visit and products to purchase.

It can be scary to think well-nigh reviews coming in on such a public platform, specially since you lot can't pick and choose which Google My Concern reviews to share. (Although yous can respond to all reviews, every bit we'll explain after.)

But don't panic: Google finds that a combination of positive and negative reviews is more trustworthy than page after page of glowing recommendations.

How to fix up a Google Business Profile

Step 1: Sign in to Google Business organisation Profile Manager

If you're already logged into a Google business relationship, you're automatically logged into Google Business Profile Director. Otherwise, enter your usual Google business relationship login details or create a new Google account.

Step two: Add together your business

Enter your business name. If information technology does not appear in the drop-down menu, click Add your business to Google. Then select the appropriate category for your business and click Next.

Google Business Profile Manager business category

Pace 3: Enter your location

If you take a physical location customers can visit, select Yes. Then add your business address. You may also be asked to position a marking for the location on a map. If your business does not take a location customers can visit simply offers in-person services or deliveries, y'all can list your service areas. So click Next.

create profile and add business location

If you didn't enter a physical address, Google will ask y'all to specify which region you're based in. Choose from the drib-down card and click Next.

select region where business is based

Stride 4: Fill in your contact information

Enter your business organisation phone number and website address so customers can reach you. If you prefer non to exist reached by telephone, you don't have to enter a phone number.

When your info is consummate, click Next.

add contact info including phone number and email address

Pace 5: Verify your concern

Enter your real concrete address, not a post function box. This information is only used to verify your business organisation and is non displayed on your Google Business Profile or shared with the public.

enter mailing address to verify business

Enter your address and click Next. You'll be offered the applicable options for verifying your account. Physical businesses will need to go a postcard by mail to verify their location. Service-area businesses can be verified through an electronic mail address.

Once you receive your five-digit lawmaking, enter it on the next screen (or get to https://business.google.com/) and click Verify or Verify business.

enter five-digit verification code

You'll get a confirmation screen showing you lot're verified. On that screen, click Next.

Pace 6: Customize your profile

Enter your business hours, messaging preferences, business organisation description, and photos. (Nosotros'll get into the details of how to optimize your profile content in the adjacent section of this mail.)

When you're gear up, click Continue. You'll discover yourself in the Business Profile Director dashboard.

Google My Business Profile Manager overview

From here, you lot can manage your business profile, view insights, manage reviews and messages, and create Google ads.

How to optimize your Google My Business profile

Google determines local search ranking based on iii factors:

  • Relevance: How well your Google My Business listing matches a search
  • Distance: How far your location is from the search or searcher
  • Prominence: How well-known your business is (based on factors like links, number of reviews, review score, and SEO)

Here are some steps yous tin can have to maximize your score for all three factors.

Complete all elements of your profile

Customers are 2.vii times more likely to consider your business reputable if you lot take a complete Google Business Profile. They're also 70% more likely to actually visit your location.

Google specifically says that "businesses with consummate and accurate information are easier to match with the right searches." This improves your score for relevance. The primal here is to tell Google visitors "what you do, where you are, and when they can visit."

Bonus: Get the gratuitous template to easily craft a detailed contour of your ideal customer and/or target audition.

Get the free template now!

If your business hours alter around holidays or seasons, make sure to proceed them upward to appointment.

Verify your location(s)

Verified business organization locations are "more probable to show in local search results beyond Google products, like Maps and Search." Including a verified location also helps improve your score for the distance ranking factor.

If y'all skipped over verifying your location in the business relationship creation steps above, request your verification postcard now at https://business.google.com/.

Add real images and videos of your business organization

Your Google Business concern Profile includes a logo and cover photograph. Utilize images consistent with those on your social profiles to make it easier for people to recognize your brand.

Merely don't stop there. Add images and videos to showcase your location, work surround, and team.

If you run a eating house, post pictures of your meals, menus, and dining room. Make sure they look flavory, professional, and aren't low res. Co-ordinate to Google, businesses with photos receive more requests for directions and more clicks through to their websites.

How to add or edit photos to your profile on Google:

  1. From the dashboard, click on Photos in the left menu.
  2. Start by adding your logo and cover photo. You tin upload an image, cull one from your Business organization Profile albums, or choose a photo in which your business is tagged.
  3. To add more photos, click At Work or Squad in the top carte of the photos page.
  4. To add together videos, click the Video tab at the superlative of the photos folio.

photos overview including cover photo and video

Include keywords in your contour

Using the correct keywords will better relevance. Non sure where to offset? Try Google Trends or Keyword Planner.

Google Analytics, Hootsuite Insights, and social monitoring tools can also help you uncover terms people use to search for your business. Incorporate them in a natural way into your business concern description. Don't stuff keywords or utilize irrelevant ones – this can actually injure your search ranking.

Encourage and answer reviews and questions

People trust other people more than they trust businesses. A practiced review can exist the deciding factor that tips prospective customers in your favor. Reviews also improve your Google ranking.

The best time to ask for a review is after providing a great experience. To make it easier, Google provides a direct link to enquire customers to review your business.

To share your review request link:

1. From the dashboard, scroll downwardly to the push that says Share review class.

Google My Business Profile Manager share review form

2. Re-create and paste the link into a message to customers, or into your autoresponder and online receipts.

You cannot turn off reviews for your Google My Business folio. And it wouldn't be in your interest to do that anyway, every bit reviews show customers that your business organization is legitimate.

Only, yous can flag and report inappropriate reviews.

Besides, you can (and should!) respond to reviews, both positive and negative. Co-ordinate to a survey by Google and Ipsos Connect, businesses that respond to reviews are considered 1.seven times more trustworthy than those that don't.

Respond professionally in your make voice. If responding to a negative review, be honest and offer an apology when it's warranted.

To view and respond to reviews, click the Reviews tab in the left card of your Business Profile Managing director.

Keep your business data up to date

Brand sure to edit your business profile if you change your hours of operation, contact information, etc. Nada annoys customers more than showing up inside operating hours simply to find y'all closed. If yous have special hours for holidays or even as a i-off, make sure they are reflected in your Google Business organisation Contour.

You can also create Google My Business posts to share updates, product news, offers, and events.

To edit your business information:

You can get back to the dashboard to make edits at any time at business concern.google.com. You can likewise edit your business organization information direct from Google search or Maps. Just search your business organization proper name on one of these tools to admission the editing panel.

edit business information directly from Google Search

To create and share Google My Business posts:

  1. From the dashboard, click Posts in the left menu.
  2. Click Create post.
  3. Cull which type of post you want to create: a COVID-19 update, an offer, data nearly What'due south New, an event, or a product. Each blazon of post has unlike information to complete.

Google My Business create post

Add special features and attributes

Special features are available for Google business organization accounts, depending on the category you've chosen.

Here's a rundown of category-specific features bachelor:

  • Hotels can display course ratings, sustainability practices, highlights, check-in and out times, and amenities.
  • Restaurants and bars tin can upload menus, dish photos, and popular dishes.
  • Service-oriented businesses can display a list of services.
  • Healthcare providers in the U.Southward. tin can add health insurance information.
  • Businesses also have access to dissimilar types of buttons based on their category, such as appointment bookings, reservations, and orders.

Bobby's BBQ and Catering business overview

If yous recall your business is eligible for one of these features, but you don't encounter them, you may have chosen the wrong category. You can choose upwards to 10 categories for your business.

You can also add together factual attributes to your profile to share more than info your customers may care about. If you run a shop or restaurant, y'all may desire to share that it'due south wheelchair attainable or offers free Wi-Fi or outdoor seating. You can even share that your company is women-owned and LGBTQ+ friendly.

How to add or edit attributes:

  1. From the dashboard, click Info.
  2. Under From the business, click Add together attributes. Or, if you've already added attributes and want to add more than, click the pencil next to From the business.
  3. Scroll through all the available options for your concern, check the applicative attributes, and click Apply.

add attributes from the business and crowd

Add together your products

If you sell products, brand sure to add an up-to-date inventory to your Business concern Profile. In addition to appearing on your profile itself, your products tin appear in Google Shopping.

add products from business overview such as paintbrush wool roll and oil paint set

To add products to your Business Profile manually:

  • From the dashboard, click Products in the left carte du jour, then click Get Started to add your first product.

If you lot have a retail business in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, or Australia, and yous use a barcode scanner to sell products with manufacturer barcodes, you tin use Pointy to automatically upload your products to your Concern Contour.

Accept advantage of Google'south free marketing tools

Google offers businesses access to a gratis marketing kit with stickers, social posts, and printable posters. You tin can even create a custom video. (The link volition only work afterward you set up your Business Contour.)

How to manage your Google My Business profile with Hootsuite

Once you create and verify your Google Business Profile, you can integrate your Google My Business business relationship with Hootsuite.

Rather than managing your Google Business Profile separately, this allows y'all to manage your Google My Business page, create posts, and respond to reviews and questions within your Hootsuite dashboard.

This integration allows you to manage Google like a social platform, inside your social team, so your messaging is always consistent, on-brand, and up-to-date.

Here's how to manage your Google Business Profile with Hootsuite.

  1. Install the Google My Business App.
  2. Select whether you want to add together your Google Business Profile streams to an existing tab, or create a new tab, then click Finish.

install Google My Business app

  1. In your Hootsuite dashboard, click on the appropriate Board nether My Streams, and click Login to Google My Business organisation for each stream.

Google my Business streams

Once you're logged in, you can create a mail and respond to Google My Business organization reviews and questions directly from your Hootsuite streams.

Employ Hootsuite to communicate with your customers via Google Business Profile and all your other social channels. Create, schedule, and publish posts to every network, become demographic data, performance reports, and more. Effort it free today.

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