How to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing to Increase Sales
Have you ever thought about the fact that most potential customers online, see your Google My Business page in a Google search, before they even see your website?
That raises my next question.
Has your business taken the time to set up your Google My Business profile?
If you answered yes, you have permission to skip down to the part of this blog post where we offer up four, FREE easy-to-use tools that Google My Business offers that could help you increase sales.
If you answered no...Google My Business (GMB) is an easy-to-use, free, marketing tool for small, medium, and large companies on the number one search engine in the world.
Google my Business is a free tool offered by Google that allows businesses to promote themselves on Google Search and Maps.
Essentially it's a really fancy, free, business directory listing service.
There are many benefits when it comes to using GMB to its fullest potential. These benefits include helping your business with local SEO, keeping customers informed with updates in contact information, hours, as well as other essential information someone may need before they feel comfortable doing business with you.
But the benefits don't stop there.
These four GMB tools can increase sales.
4 Easy Tools To Utilize in Google My Business To Increase Sales
Where we see most people go wrong with GMB, is by simply not ever using it!
They claim their listing, get all their general information in there, and then never go back to it again. There are so many businesses that have made this costly mistake. Luckily with these four tools, your business won't be next!
1. Communicate With Your Customers on GMB With Direct Messaging
In today's world, efficiency is valued highly by so many people that it is important for businesses to take advantage of live chat if they are looking for an increase in their sales.
In fact, 79% of consumers prefer businesses utilizing this tool because it allows for that instant response people crave these days. Questions potential customers might have that need to be answered before they even decide to go through with a purchase and these answers need to be ASAP.
If your business gets the majority of sales online and you're not using a live chat tool at the end of the day you're losing sales.
Google My Business actually offers live messaging capabilities through their platform directly to your cell phone or their Google Allo app. Potential customers are able to ask questions in real-time after looking at your GMB listing and immediately make decisions rather than being left in limbo and potentially never buying your product or service.
To set it up is pretty simple, just go into your GMB dashboard, find messaging and follow the steps to verify your number!
2. People These Days Don't Mind Leaving Positive Reviews, but You Have To Ask
In my first job in high school, I served tables at a local restaurant and my managers would always ask us to ask our tables to leave positive reviews. I always felt very uncomfortable and never understood why they pushed us to do it so hard until I started working soon thereafter in marketing.
Reviews hold so much power online that although it might be awkward to ask sometimes, it's very important to your business's success that you do.
There are numerous services out there now that have some type of review service on them but it has been shown that six out of 10 consumers prefer to go to Google reviews first.
So with that little fact, and the one we mentioned earlier in that Google is the number one search engine in the world...why wouldn't you use them for reviews?
A great way to ask for reviews to avoid that awkward moment, is to grab the sharable link to your reviews off of your GMB dashboard and ask people to leave honest, genuine reviews!
But beware and be sure to have a system in place to combat reviews meant for other businesses with similar names or worse, to combat bad reviews before they even happen (contact us and ask about our gotcha! Review system).
3. Allow Potential Customers to Book Appointments Directly Through GMB
We understand that not everyone might need to book appointments and services for their business, but if you do, adding a booking feature to your GMB listing for you.
The appointment setting link is under the info tab in your dashboard but the caveat is you must use one of the supported providers that Google has preselected.
This is a great tool for new businesses to set up right from the beginning in order to be efficient and increase sales from the start by reaching a group of customers that might find it convenient to book online.
4. Use GMB Post Feature to Publish Your Businesses Content
Like many social media apps these days, GMB allows businesses to post content directly to their listing.
While there is a vast amount of power behind blogging and social posting in terms of SEO and search visibility, using the posting features in GMB holds the same power.
With five options to post including an offer, what's new, events, products, and covid-19 updates, Google makes it very simple to get your content out to your potential customers. With options to add links or CTA's to one of those posts, having this content on your listing helps your business show up in search results and helps to give your customers the knowledge they need to make a purchase decision, ultimately increasing sales.
It's Never too Late to Tweak Your GMB to Increase Sales
Ways to promote your business and increase sales are never-ending, but you know that truthfully the only way to accomplish those goals, is to take action.
You now have a great starting point with these four tips for GMB but they won't help you increase sales all by themselves and without a little bit more help.
Your business's target customers are out there and they're looking for you, but it's up to you to make their buying process simple and flawless.
Reach out to Shane Shirley Media now and ask for a FREE 15-minute call with our president to get all of your questions answered about GMB and MORE!
Guest Post by Reece Smith, EVP
So amazing job to help the online marketers.
ReplyDeleteNice ppost thanks for sharing
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