For any business, local or otherwise, having a strong online presence is essential. Yet many businesses fail to recognize the importance of local SEO—the practice of optimizing your website for searches within a particular geographic area. With local SEO, you can get your business found in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for people in your local area who are looking for what you offer. A great tool to help with this is Google My Business (GMB). Let’s take a closer look at how GMB works and why you should be using it.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business is a free platform that allows businesses to manage their online presence on Google’s SERPs. It also helps customers find businesses through Maps and Search when they input relevant keywords. GMB gives businesses the opportunity to provide information about their services and products, such as contact details, opening hours, product images, customer reviews etc., so that customers can easily find what they need. This helps businesses gain visibility in their local market and reach more potential customers.
How Does GMB Help With Local SEO?
Having an active GMB account boosts your visibility in local search results, making it easier for customers to find you. It also provides valuable insight into what your customers are saying about your business—an invaluable resource when it comes to improving customer experience or resolving customer service issues. By taking advantage of GMB’s features such as Posts and Insights (which provides data on page views), you can develop a better understanding of how customers interact with your business online and which aspects need improvement.
Local SEO and Relevancy
Google’s algorithm is designed to deliver relevant results based on a user’s location or intent. That means if someone searches for “restaurants near me,” they will be presented with restaurants closest to them rather than restaurants halfway around the world.
What Are the Benefits of Using GMB?
Using GMB has several advantages over other listings platforms such as Yelp or Yellow Pages. For starters, setting up an account is easy and straightforward, plus it’s free. It’s important to keep your account active and up-to-date. By using GMB you will gain valuable insights into how people interact with your business online—from ratings and reviews to popular times and questions and answers, all this information can be used to improve the customer experience. Because GMB integrates directly with Google Maps and Search – two of the most popular tools used by consumers today – having an active account increases chances that potential customers will find you before competitors who don’t have one.
Google My Business provides invaluable benefits for businesses looking to get more visibility in their local market through SEO. Not only does it make it easier for potential customers to find your business, but also provides valuable insights into how people interact with your business online so that you can make necessary improvements where needed. Setting up an account doesn’t take a lot of time, and is a great way for companies to have an additional way to optimize their company.
