Google Business Profile

Welcome to a short Beginners Guide to GBP at Courses Buddy!

Well, we’re going to walk through the steps of setting up or claiming and verifying a Google Business Profile (GBP).

Checking for Existing Business Listing

First, you need to check if the business already exists as a business listing on Google. Take a look on Google Maps. Search for the business name appended with a location. For instance, OzaarXR, Lahore. If you see a listing for the business already exists, you’ll need to claim it. Make sure that you’re signed into your Google account.

Creating a Google Account

If you’re creating a new Google account to do so, then ideally you’ll sign up using an email address on your business domain. For instance, hello@abc.com. If you already have an existing Google account that you’ll be using, then log in to that. But just remember which account you use.

Initiating Business Claim

Go to the URL section. Type in the name of the business you want to claim. It might be that you need to select one of the businesses that appear below your search term. You’ll need to request access to that listing. Just click on the Request access button.

Adding Business Information

If you did a search for the business and you found that a pre-existing listing doesn’t exist, you’ll need to go ahead and click Create a business with this name. You’ll now need to add your business name. Make sure you use your exact actual business name.

Specifying Business Type

Next, you’ll choose a category. This is an important step, and with a business like VR or AR, choosing Technology as the primary category is pretty easy. You can change the category if you need to and add more secondary categories later.

Providing Contact Information

The next step is to tell Google if customers can come into a physical location or if the business is service-based. Next, you’ll need to add a phone number and your business website, which is optional but obviously recommended.

Verifying Google Business Profile

The final step in claiming and verifying a GBP is actually getting the listing verified. Most common is verification by postcard. Although Google can offer verification by phone, text, email, or video.

Post-Verification Steps

Postcard verifications can take up to 14 days, and while you’re waiting for your postcard, don’t edit the name, category or address of the business or request a new code. You’ll just need to be patient.

The listing will not be live on Google Maps until the listing is verified. And when it’s verified, you’ll get an email from Google and you’ll see a little blue check mark next to your listing in the search engine results page or in the GBP dashboard.

I hope, claiming and verification will be easy for you. 

Well, having a well-optimised business listing can make a huge difference in how a business shows up in the local search results. You want to make sure that there is consistency across the web and also in the offline world in how your name, address, and phone number appear. When you’re creating and optimising your GBP that’s a great time to double-check that all the information is correct.

Now, I suggest keeping a master spreadsheet with these details on, so that you can always refer back to it and keep everything consistent. 

Importance of Categories

In the previous lesson, we talked briefly about categories. Your primary category is very important in terms of being a primary ranking factor in local search, but your secondary categories are also important. You can use a Chrome plugin like GMBSpy or PlePer to take a look and see what secondary categories your competitors are using.

Another important thing to remember about categories is that you can switch them seasonally or according to the demand in your marketplace. For example, a bike shop that rents bikes in the summer and skis and snowboards in the winter would want to switch their primary category seasonally to better reflect their most important services and products.

Maintaining Accurate Business Hours

Make sure your business hours are kept up to date. There’s no better way to annoy a potential customer than your profile saying that you’re open and then them turning up to buy a cake or whatever it is that they set out to do and finding that you’re closed. Google gives users the ability to filter the search results according to opening times.

Setting Holiday Hours

Holiday opening hours allow a business to mark specific dates such as public holidays or special events with an opening schedule that is different from the regular opening hours. You can only add special opening hours once you’ve set your regular hours.

Special Hours and Closures

Also, you should only use the special hours function to close your business for up to six days in a row. If you need to close your business for seven days or more in a row, you’ll need to mark your business as temporarily closed.

Adding More Hours

More hours give the business a chance to add a subset of hours for specific services. Google states that generally you should set more hours as a subset of your primary hours.

Maximising Business Website Links

There are quite a few opportunities to link to your business website from your Google Business listing. The most important one is the website link, which you can find in the search interface here. The page on your website that your GBP links to can make a difference to your ranking and to your conversions.

Linking Strategy 

If you have a single location business like OzaarXR, linking to the home page is a good idea. For businesses with multiple locations, like Target or Tesco, linking to the actual location page for the location is a better practice.

Setting Service Areas and Business Description

Use this area if you serve customers at their location rather than your own bricks and mortar location. If your business serves customers both at your physical location and at your customers’ location, enter both a business location and a service area. Only enter the city’s postal codes or regions that you actually serve.

Write an Informative Business Description

The Business Description is really the only large open text area you’ve got to talk about your business. In the Google Business Profile, 750 characters are allowed. However, only the first 244 will show unless the user clicks more. This is a place to highlight what you want people to know about your business.

Optimising Service and Product Offerings

Not all business profiles will have access to products or services, but if you do have them, they’re very much worth using. GBP services have more limited visibility than GBP products. They don’t show up as a list of services on a desktop at all. However, on a mobile device, you’ll find the services displayed in a tab labelled Services in Google search.

Adding and Managing Services and Products

In the search interface, you can edit your services in terms of the service name, price, and description. If you are adding services to your listings, I recommend keeping a master spreadsheet to keep track of them. If Google Products are available to your business, you’ll see them. 

Monitoring Insights

User-defined attributes are offered up by users. They’re crowdsourced from people that visit the listing that Google thinks might have information. Quite likely that people that have visited that physical location. I like to check-in on these regularly to see what types of questions Google is asking because this will give you an insight into the questions and topics that Google thinks are important to users in your niche.

There is no doubt that reviews, both positive and negative, will have a big impact on a business. Reviews are often a huge part of how consumers choose one product or service provider over another. Taking into account not only what the reviewers say, but also the way in which the business responds to those reviews.

Factors Influencing Consumer Perception

According to one survey on the impact of reviews and ratings on GBPs found that of their research participants, when asked about the top review factors that make them feel positively about a local business:

Description of Positive Experience: 75%

High Star Rating: 58%

Business Owner’s Response to the Review: 55%

Review Posted Within the Last Month: 49%

Strategies for Generating Reviews

It’s against Google’s guidelines to offer an incentive for people to leave you reviews, but there are still ways that you can ask for reviews and encourage customers to leave reviews.

In the SERP editing experience for your business, you will find a button titled Ask for reviews. Click on it and you’ll see a short code that you can use to share with customers when you’re asking for reviews.

Tools for Review Management

There are many tools for Google Business Profile (GBP) in the market. But BrightLocal and other tools like GatherUp provide review generation and management systems. You can send out requests for reviews to a list of customers via email or text message.

It’s important to respond to both positive and negative reviews. Responding to reviews shows your commitment to customer service and that you’re engaged with your business.

Creating a Review Management Procedure

I recommend writing a review generation and management procedure for your company that covers the following:

At what point in the customer journey should you ask for a review? Who will ask for the review and what method and content should they use to decide? Who will be responsible for replying to reviews? Who will be responsible for making sure that the content of customer reviews is used to provide business intelligence?

Dealing with Negative Reviews

If you don’t have direct experience of what happened, you might want to speak with your staff to follow up on any complaint in the review. What actually happened? Investigate the reasons behind the review as negative comments.

Fighting GBP Spam

When we talk about spam in this context, we usually talk about tactics that are used to manipulate visibility in the local listings. Google gives very clear guidelines about the types of businesses that are eligible for GBPs, and you can find that here. Give it a good read as that will fill you in on whether or not your competitors are using spammy techniques in order to gain a competitive advantage. 

Whether or not it should be the responsibility of marketers and business owners to fight spam, or if Google should take more positive action to limit how well spam works when manipulating rankings with shady tactics, is another conversation.

Identifying Spam Tactics

So in terms of fighting spam, when should a business owner decide to take action? For me, the defining factor is when your business is affected and when spammy listings or manipulated listings outrank you. By preventing spam, you’ll hopefully suppress the visibility of those listings and your business should get a chance to shine more strongly in the local SERP. These are four common types of spam that you might encounter in GBP.

Keyword Stuffing in the Business Name

Keyword spam is when a business adds additional words to their business name. Usually these are related to the products and/or services that they offer, attributes of that service, and/or geographical areas.

Businesses Not Eligible to Be on Google Maps

Businesses that have no physical location and who don’t serve customers at a specific location are not eligible to be on Google Maps.

Multiple Listings for the Same Business

Google is clear that there should only be one profile per business. And if you find that one of your competitors has set up multiple listings for the same business, then you’ll be able to report this to Google.

Listings for Businesses at Nonexistent Locations

If you have a competitor appearing in the SERP showing a location where you know they don’t have a bricks and mortar location, and where they don’t actually make in-person contact with customers, then you’re going to want to do something about that.

Taking Action Against Spam

So let’s cover what actions can be taken against these spam tactics.

Reporting Keyword Stuffing

If you suspect that one of your competitors is getting an unfair advantage in the SERP by keyword stuffing their business name, I suggest you pay attention to the following things to identify if any of the following are present.

Addressing Ineligible Businesses

If you think that one of your competitors falls into the category of businesses that are not eligible to be on Google Maps, you can take more action accordingly.

Reporting Multiple Listings

Google is clear that there should only be one profile per business. And if you find that one of your competitors has set up multiple listings for the same business, then you’ll be able to report this to Google.

Detecting Nonexistent Locations

If you have a competitor appearing in the SERP showing a location where you know they don’t have a bricks and mortar location, and where they don’t actually make in-person contact with customers, then you’re going to want to do something about that.

Monitoring and Reporting Spam

So let’s talk through some options for reporting spam.

Using the “Suggest an Edit” Feature

The first option for reporting GBP spam is via Suggest an Edit, again please be aware of which Google account you are using to submit these suggestions because Google will of course associate the email address with the edits.

Completing a Redressal Form

If you come across misleading information or fraudulent activity on Google maps, related to the name, phone number, or URL of a business, you may use this form to submit a complaint.

That’s it for spam fighting. I hope that you don’t have to spend a lot of time dealing with spam listings, but if you do, they should stand you in good stead in terms of taking your first steps to smash those spammy listings out of the SERP.

Measuring Local Visibility

When we talk about measuring success on Google Business Profile (GBP), the first thing to consider is local visibility. Tools like BrightLocal’s Local Search Grid provide valuable insights into the geographic visibility of your business based on user search terms.

Geo grids offer a heat map-style visualisation of your business’s organic visibility, allowing you to track performance trends over time. Monitoring these rankings provides early warning signs of any declines in visibility.

Tracking Visibility Trends Over Time

A timeline view of visibility trends helps businesses stay proactive in maintaining and improving their local search presence. An increase in visibility indicates effective optimization efforts, while a decrease signals the need for adjustments. While rankings are important, they are not the sole indicator of success. Business metrics such as leads, inquiries, bookings, and sales are more directly tied to revenue generation and should be prioritised in measurement efforts.

You know that identifying metrics that directly impact business outcomes ensures that efforts are focused on activities that drive tangible results. This includes actions taken by potential customers, such as phone calls, email inquiries, form fills, and bookings.

Moreover, evaluating leads and conversions provides insights into the effectiveness of your GBP in converting prospects into customers. Monitoring these metrics helps optimise conversion pathways and improve ROI.

Lastly, reviews play a crucial role in shaping consumer perceptions and influencing purchase decisions. Monitoring review quantity, quality, and sentiment helps gauge customer satisfaction and brand reputation.

GBP Performance

GBP Performance provides valuable data on user interactions with your listing, including clicks, calls, messages, and bookings. Using this data helps optimise your GBP for maximum engagement and conversion.

Using Google Analytics

Integrating Google Analytics with GBP data provides a comprehensive view of user behaviour, both on your listing and website. Analysing user interactions and website traffic helps identify areas for improvement and optimization.

Advanced users can integrate GBP and Google Analytics data using tools like Looker Studio and Jepto. These platforms offer customizable dashboards and reporting capabilities for in-depth analysis and reporting. Tracking website traffic originating from your GBP provides insights into user engagement and conversion rates. By analysing traffic sources and behaviour, businesses can refine their online marketing strategies.

Setting up conversion goals and events in Google Analytics allows businesses to track specific actions taken by website visitors. This includes form submissions, newsletter sign-ups, purchases, and other key conversions.

Creating Custom Reports with Dashthis

Tools like Dashthis offer pre-designed templates for creating custom reports that consolidate data from multiple sources, including GBP, Google Analytics, and other marketing platforms. Customizable reporting makes it easy to visualise and communicate performance metrics.

So, measuring key metrics such as leads, conversions, and customer interactions, businesses can assess the effectiveness of their GBP optimization efforts. This data-driven approach enables informed decision-making and continuous improvement.

To ensure the ongoing success of your GBP, regular monitoring is essential. This involves checking for any edits made to your listing and responding promptly to reviews and other user-generated content. Anyone can suggest edits to a GBP, it’s important to monitor these changes frequently. 

Monitoring and responding to reviews should be a daily or weekly task to maintain a positive reputation and address customer feedback promptly. Designating specific individuals to manage reviews can ensure consistency and timely responses.

Monitoring featured reviews on your GBP allows you to gauge sentiment and themes while ensuring that you respond appropriately. While you can’t control which reviews are featured, proactive reputation management can influence overall perceptions.

Q&A Content Monitoring

Keeping track of questions and answers on your GBP ensures accurate information is provided and potential leads are engaged promptly. Responding to queries with helpful and concise answers demonstrates responsiveness and enhances user experience.

Photo and Video Management

Regularly updating and monitoring submitted photos ensures accurate representation of your business. Monitoring user-uploaded images allows you to maintain control over your business’s visual presence and flag inappropriate content for removal.

Google Business Profile Posts

Using GBP posts to promote offers, events, and updates can drive engagement and conversions. Testing different formats and content types helps identify effective posting strategies, while tools like Postamatic streamline the publishing process.

And developing a monitoring schedule helps ensure consistent oversight of your GBP. Use tools and spreadsheets to organise tasks and track changes effectively, prioritising accuracy and relevance of information.

Staying Informed About Updates

You can maximise the potential of your GBP, by staying informed about new features, changes, and consumer insights is crucial. Resources like Think With Google and the Community tab provide valuable updates and trends to inform your optimization efforts.

Don’t forget to SPREAD your WINGS and FLY!