Google My Business Tips
These Google My Business Tips are simple, quick tips you can implement on your own. You might be wondering: “why do I have to have a Google My Business Page?” (Sidenote: in 2022, Google change the name to be: Google Business Profile). Here’s a common scenario: Consumer “Sally” is new to your city (or she’s not new to your city but looking for a better solution) and looking for a hair stylist to color her hair. She’s done her homework and read reviews of local hair salons in Google and Yelp. She’s narrowed her choices down to two hair salons. Here’s What the Typical Consumer Does When Deciding Between Two Businesses for the Same Service or Product She Googles (searches in Google) each hair salon’s business name to see what their overall online reputation is. One hair salon has good or neutral search results and numerous photos of the business on their Google My Business profile (aka: Google Business Profile). There are pictures of their staff, customers’ before and after photos, inside pictures of their salon, outside pictures of their salon; and numerous photos of the salon owner in action, happily interacting with and serving her customers. In all the pictures, people look genuinely happy. The business has a 4.9 average rating with 134 Google reviews by customers. Then Sally Consumer Googles her other choice. That hair salon has a Google My Business page, too. But there’s only one photo. It’s a little blurry. It’s a user-submitted photo of the building sign. No other photos. Sally did visit their website. In fact, she visited both of the hair salons’ websites and they were each fairly nice and detailed with pricing. But Sally feels better choosing the hair salon that had numerous photos of happy people in their Google My Business page that went hand-in-hand with the numerous positive reviews. She felt better about that salon than she did about the other. The one with numerous photos on their Google My Business page seemed to care about what their prospective customers would find when people searched for a hair salon. The owner replied in a thoughtful manner to each of her reviews. And so they actively managed their Google My Business page. Your Google Home Page Is Your Online Reputation When new people are thinking of possibly spending money with your business, and they already now your business name, they’ll most likely do a Google search based on your business name. You should do a search for your business name, too, and review the results. Think of the search results as being like your Google Home Page. Your Google Home Page is your online reputation (basically). The best place to begin managing your online reputation is to actively manage your Google My Business profile (aka: Google Business Profile). Follow my tips below to make sure your Google My Business profile is accurate and helpful to future prospective customers. I hope you find these tips helpful. Google My Business Tips From a laptop or desktop computer: go to Google; sign in; and type your business name into the search box. You should see the knowledge graph for your company appear on the right side of the search results. Make sure your business’s name, address and phone number (NAP) are correct. If you’ve never edited your own GMB profile before, read about it in Google: Edit your business listing in Google. If you need to claim your business listing: sign into Google and click this link: Request Ownership. Depending on how quickly the current owner replies to the email that Google will send to them, and if they will give you ownership, you’ll then be able to edit your business listing. Keep reading now so you can apply my tips. Make sure your business is in the best category possible. If you own a restaurant that services alcohol, your best category is “Restaurant” and not “Bar.” You’ll be able to mention that you have a bar in your description. Not sure if you have a business that qualifies to have a Google My Business page? Google has a simple rule for this: Eligible businesses In order to qualify for a Google My Business listing, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours. Ineligible businesses The following businesses aren’t eligible for a business listing: Rental or for-sale properties such as vacation homes, model homes, or vacant apartments. Sales or leasing offices, however, are eligible for verification. An ongoing service, class, or meeting at a location that you don’t own or have the authority to represent. Lead generation agents or companies. Read more: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en More Google My Business Tips: When your prospective customers find your business in Google and find your GMB profile, the first thing they’ll look for are your reviews. (Check out DaGama Digital Marketing Agency Google Reviews). What if you don’t have any reviews? Your prospective customers don’t want to be the “guinea pig” or seemingly the first to try out your services, therefore, they will most likely move on to their next choice. Worst cast scenario: what do you do when you have one review and it’s a negative review? Ask yourself what this says about your company. In a world that’s increasingly driven by blockchain Trust is the new currency, would YOU do business with a company that only has one Google review and it’s a negative review? You just answered “no” so now what? Read on, dear business owner, for my next tip. What About Negative Reviews? A negative review is an opportunity for you to shine in the eyes of current customers and potential customers. A complaint is an opportunity to make things right and satisfy the complainer. All of your reviews should ideally receive a unique, thoughtful and sincere reply, however, with a negative review, you must especially reply in a thoughtful, sincere and graceful manner. Each negative review is completely unique and therefore it’s difficult to advise you, however, generally
Get Found On Google
You know you need your business to get found on Google as soon as possible. You’ve tried to figure this out on your own. Or you trusted someone to get you found in Google and they failed. Effective SEO (Search Engine Optimization), managed by a highly experienced SEO agency, owned by an SEO expert who’s been studying Google since it was “born” in 1998, is the solution you need right now. Yes: that’s us. Thanks for clicking or tapping that Google search result and landing here! Here’s a list of 25 SEO tips for business owners to get found on Google: Conduct thorough keyword research. Optimize your website’s meta tags. Create high-quality and engaging content. Focus on long-tail keywords. Optimize your website’s loading speed. Implement a responsive design for mobile devices. Leverage social media for increased visibility. Build quality backlinks from authoritative websites. Optimize your website’s internal linking structure. Utilize header tags (H1, H2, H3) effectively. Optimize images with descriptive alt tags. Improve your website’s user experience (UX). Implement schema markup for rich snippets. Monitor and analyze your website’s performance using analytics tools. Regularly update and refresh your website’s content. Encourage user-generated content and reviews. Optimize your website for local SEO. Claim and optimize your Google Business Profile. Leverage online directories and review sites. Implement SSL encryption for secure browsing. Optimize your website’s URL structure. Utilize XML sitemaps for search engine crawling. Optimize your website for voice search. Implement structured data for enhanced search results. Regularly monitor and improve your website’s SEO performance. Remember that these tips provide a general overview of various SEO strategies. I could share a LOT more SEO tips. It’s important to dive deeper into each area and understand the specific techniques and best practices involved. Though no SEO expert can guarantee to get your company found on page one on Google and other search engines, we do have a 100% success rate for getting all of our clients onto page one with their top 30+ keywords, plus, hundreds of popular keywords they’ve been wanting to rank for. Work With a Local SEO Company to Get Found On Google Now that you’ve found a local SEO company: DaGama Digital Marketing (also known as DaGama Web Studio) on Google, and probably read our 5-star reviews, you’re ready to speak with someone who works here about your marketing needs. You will speak with me: Lori Gama, founder and SEO expert. I’ll answer your questions, show you current, live examples of our clients we have ranked in the top 10 search results and inform you about the 27 tasks my team and I perform daily and monthly to get your company found on Google. Then you can decide which SEO package you’d like to invest in. Or we can design a custom SEO package for you. SEO is Like Growing a Garden SEO is very much like growing a garden. Think of me as your “master gardener” tending to your garden: the patch of land that is your website. The seeds I plant are the researched keywords that your customers are using when they’re searching for a solution to their problems. My team and I tend to your garden (your SEO’d website) every day. Just like a real garden needs water, sunshine, nourishing plant food, your website needs specific things done to it so that the “seeds” (the keywords) grow up into search engine result rankings (SERPs). The competitors you have can’t choke out your flowering rankings as long as a master gardener (SEO expert) tends to the garden daily. Sure you can let go of consistent SEO work. Let the garden grow wild, untended. But then the weeds choke out your flowers. Those competitors, who are tending to their SEO’d websites, take over your flourishing rankings and soon your garden dies. Your visibility on Google disappears. SEO Strategy With a Holistic Approach So, in SEO, the big picture view is essential. You can’t just look at one piece at a time – you can’t only focus on increasing quality backlinks, for example. Instead: integrate a backlink strategy into your SEO strategy. Instead of only writing helpful content based on researched keywords, relevant to your target audience’s needs, you have to understand how everything is interconnected and contributes to the overall success of a website. There are many, many things to concentrate on when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. A holistic approach to SEO means considering every element, recognizing how they relate and interact, and taking into account the broader context to ensure optimal performance and functionality. Contact Lori Gama, owner of DaGama Digital Marketing Agency, if you’re interested in finding out how we can grow your business with SEO, social media marketing, a new website, pay-per-click Google ads and other digital marketing strategies. Fill out our contact form here.