Google my business 2020: 13 essentials optimisation points

GMB or Google My Business is Google’s instrument to help enable business owners to manage their presence on the internet. Brands seeking local exposure benefit a lot from Google My Business. Naturally, businesses needing targeted and localised visibility on Google needs this very important channel. If you are one of these businesses, then here is your guide to Google My Business 2020: 13 Essentials Optimisation Points.

A Quick Guide to Your Google Business Profile

Businesses who wish to stay ahead of the pack on search engine results usually do two things: optimize their site and optimize their Google Ads. However, there is another thing that needs optimising and that is Google business listing. Also known as your Google Business Profile, this is a free snapshot of your business that customers can quickly search and scan to learn more about you and how to interact with your business.

What does a good business profile in Google look like?

• Photos – Images must be available to give customers an idea what the business looks like.
• Signs of Life – It must also have links to a working website, ratings and reviews, and other indications that the business is alive and thriving.
• Contact Information – A working phone number, complete address, and driving directions to the business must also be included to help customers reach out to you.
• FAQs – Always answer customers’ questions to invite engagement from customers.

Why do you need to optimise your Google Business Profile?

• To improve customer engagement
• To improve your local marketing
• To boost your business’ local ranking
• To improve your conversion rates

 Therefore, it is imperative for businesses to make sure they have a and optimise their business profiles to make sure their business thrives.
Now, let’s talk about the 13 things you need to pay attention to when optimizing your business profile.

Google My Business 2020: 13 Essentials Optimisation Points

• Google My Business Account – You need to first create a GMB account to be able to create and optimise your business profile. To create an account, all you need is a Google or a Gmail account for your business and sign up on Google.com/business.

• Filling in every section in your business profile helps Google give you a better rank in local search results. In other words, the more complete your profile is, the better it is for your local SEO. A complete profile also provides customers with all the information they need to engage with your business. The following are key information about the business that really need to be filled in:

  • Business name
  • Physical and website address
  • Phone number and other ways to contact you
  • Hours of operation

Once that’s done, you can start filling in the rest of the information such as business category, products and services, questions and answers, posts, reviews, and others.

• Contact information – Optimise your contact information in your business profile. The business name on your business profile must appear exactly as it does in your physical store, other signages, and other listings across other platforms and sites. Your address and contact information must be accurate and your hours of operation must be indicated correctly to inform customers and avoid disappointing them.

• Business description – While owners cannot control the description that appears directly below the business name in the profile; there is a “from the business” section. This appears under the “reviews.” Optimise the business description by using all 750 characters provided. Make sure to fill in the first 250 with key information. You can use the information found on your website but try not to repeat information already found in other sections.

• Category – You must choose a category to optimise your business profile. Be specific in choosing the right category, and when possible, choose a secondary category,

• Attributes – After choosing a category, select attributes to describe your business further.

• Photos – Photos tell customers that the business is active which helps your ranking. It also helps get your business in the images results. Most importantly, it increases engagement. Upload high-quality photos regularly, every few days, if possible.

• Reviews – Reviews influence buying behavior big time which makes them a huge ranking factor. Encourage your customers to leave a review and respond in a personalised and professional manner to each one.

• Posts – Create posts about events, offers, and other announcements on your business profile regularly. This increases customer engagement and tells Google your business is active.<>/p

• Questions – This is a tricky one because anyone can ask a question and answer them. As the owner, you must stay on top of the questions to ensure accurate responses are posted on the question section.

• Products and services – Add your product and services to add content to the business profile. Content helps your profile to rank better. To optimise better, add the name, product descriptions, and prices.

• Messaging – For added value to your customers, give them the option to send a text to your phone from your business profile. This helps increase customer satisfaction which is a key ranking factor. Enable this feature on your GMB

• Google My Business Strategy – The last of the 13 essentials optimisation points for Google My Business in 2020 is a strategy to maintain the business profile. Your business profile must continually evolve so it needs updated information, new posts and content every few days, a steady stream of engagement from your customers, timely responses to questions and reviews, and others. A solid strategy will ensure all these are taken care of.

We hope this guide to the 13 Essentials Optimisation Points for Google My Business 2020 will help you optimise your business profile so you can stay ahead of the pack. If you need help, then company Shtudio is always happy to help you.

What to do if a bad review bothers your small business

No matter how good your intentions are and despite your best efforts; you can’t make everyone happy. Every business, big and small, has had to deal with negative reviews. No one wants a bad evaluation; no one especially likes a bad evaluation announced to the public. Nevertheless, a bad review presents a unique opportunity not only to improve your services but also to strengthen public perception about you and your brand. Here’s what you need to do if a bad review bothers your small business.

The Importance of Online Reviews

Reviews are incredibly crucial for businesses. Everything is digital today. Customers rely on other people’s reviews to find out which businesses or brands they want to engage with. Why are online reviews so important?

•  Personal Recommendation – According to survey estimates, more than 80% of online consumers equate reviews to personal recommendations and are significantly influenced by them.
• Trustworthiness – Consumers see reviews as trustworthy because they are not influenced by the businesses but come from people who have first-hand experience with them.
• Digital Marketing – Reviews are an important SEO driver. They improve your search engine ranking. In fact, the more high-quality (i.e. long and detailed) reviews you have, the more trustworthy the site would be. This will boost your search engine rankings.
• Engagement – Reviews give businesses the opportunity to engage with their customers, which helps build loyalty and trust.

Bad Reviews are Important for Small Business Development

It won’t surprise you that most businesses try their best to get as many positive reviews as they can. It’s also not hard to imagine why a business tries to get a few negative ones as possible. However, bad reviews are just as important as good ones, if not more.

• Reality check. It’s easy to be blinded when you don’t see what is going on in the frontlines. Bad reviews tell business owners about the glitches and the loopholes in the whole operation. They also give you insights about how customers see your business.

• Room for improvement. In relation to #1, bad reviews tell business owners the areas that can be improved. This can help you build better products or offer better services.

• Customer understanding. With bad reviews, you gain an understanding of who your customers are, what they are interested in, where they are, and what they need and want. This could help, for instance, in your strategy for your small business website design in Sydney or other cities.

• Worst-case prep. Bad reviews give potential customers a glimpse of the worst thing they can experience in dealing with a business. This gives them a better understanding of their options.

• Too good to be true. Positive reviews are well and good but too many of them seem fake.

• Manage your rep. Finally, and possibly most importantly, bad reviews help you manage your online reputation. A well-executed, sincere, polite, tactful, helpful, authentic, personal response to a bad review can work wonders for your reputation.

What To Do If a Bad Review Bothers Your Small Business

• Never reply angrily. This could damage your reputation beyond repair. See if this has happened before or not and come up with a strategy to respond. But don’t take too long.

• Acknowledge and apologize. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is, a customer experienced something negative, so you must acknowledge that and apologize. Show genuinely regret.

• Be personal and authentic. Template responses are not a good idea. A personalized response is effective in calming customers down and shows others that you really care. Be sincere.

• Take the details offline. Once you have publicly responded in a tact, take action offline.

• Deliver on your promises. Solve the customer’s problems, answer questions, and act on the issue in a timely manner.

• Provide an update. Go back to the public comment and thank the customer for the feedback and provide an update of what has been done so far.

• Chalk it up to learning experiences. Learn from the mistake and use the experience to better your services.

 If a bad review bothers your small business, take it as a unique challenge and opportunity to improve your business, and impress your customers.

Covid-19 and why seo is more important than ever

Across the world, cities are being locked down. The way of life has drastically changed overnight. Markets are crashing, economies are stalled, and people are asked to stay indoors (and guard their toilet paper). That is why being online is going to be extremely crucial over the next few weeks, even months. Let’s talk about COVID-19 and why SEO is more important than ever.

COVID-19 not-so-fun facts

COVID-19 is a virus strain, the flu with an excellent brand identity. The first reported outbreak of the new coronavirus started in Wuhan, China late 2019 and is now in at least 140 countries. The symptoms of this include dry cough, tiredness, and fever. Some people, however, who contract the virus don’t develop any symptoms at all; making the virus even scarier as asymptomatic people who are not tested can infect others unknowingly.

While 80% recover from the illness; the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions are disproportionately more likely to become seriously ill or die from the infection. But I’m sure we’ve all heard enough about this on the news already. In fact, this is ALL we are hearing right now.

COVID-19 and Why SEO is More Important Than Ever

Search engines like Google took it upon themselves to organize the world’s information and make it relevant and totally accessible. The process of search engine optimization is their way of helping people find the information they are looking for.

Now more than ever, the importance of SEO, as well as the strategies of an SEO agency, is paramount. Done right, SEO helps people get the correct information to remain healthy and, as more and more people spend more time at home, have some semblance of normalcy amidst worldwide fear and panic.

How SEO Helps People

• Helps Locate Relevant Information – With a solid SEO content strategy, you can help people find information regarding the disease, how to prevent it, local resources, best practices, and other need-to-know facts and figures. Keeping the public informed helps in preventing the spread of the virus.

• Normalises Day-to-Day Life – As cities go on lockdown, people are required to stay at home to help flatten the curve. People, therefore, turn to online businesses to meet their daily needs like food, supplies, among other things. SEO helps people find relevant businesses that can meet their requirements.

• Prevents the Spread of Misinformation – In a crisis like this, the spread of misinformation is just as dangerous, if not more, than the disease itself. SEO helps filter content and direct users to relevant and credible information sources to keep people informed.

• Enables Productivity – More and more employees and students are now required to work from home to hold back the spread of the new coronavirus. SEO helps them remain productive by optimizing their searches, directing them to useful websites, applications, and distance learning resource materials where they can still meet with colleagues and friends to continue work as usual, or at least, as close to usual as possible.

These are terrifying times, indeed. No one knows how and when this will end. During the outbreak of COVID-19, SEO is more important than ever because until this is over; people need access to relevant, useful, and correct information to help keep them safe and healthy and help them live their lives as normal as possible in the face of this global pandemic.

In other words, people will stay home and search for stuff, more than ever before. So if your business is nowhere to be found and you heavily relied on people physically walking in – you may have to rethink your strategy moving forward.