Have you been lost on roads and savior Google maps helped you? Google maps might help you with directions and locations.
Well, you might be surprised If I tell you that Google maps help you to enhance the visibility of your business.
Mic drop, are you wondering how’s it possible?
Don’t worry, we are here to answer all your questions. Here is a complete guide on marketing strategies, how to make the best use of Google maps and the best use of Google map, how to reach your business to an audience, and how to add your business to Google maps to enhance visibility and position.
Mapping Your Business on Google Maps Mapping Your Business on Google Maps
1. Understanding the Importance of Adding Your Business to Google Maps
Google maps have changed over the years from being a virtual map to planning your journey to discovering new places.
Google map suggests various marketing strategies. Add your business to Google maps will fetch you a lot of benefits. This is a great way to gain the attention of the audience towards your business. You can build credibility with your customers by displaying images, videos, and information like business hours, location, etc.
1.1 Create Google account
To map your business profile with Google maps, you need a Google account. Google account will give accessibility to various features and services. Here is a simple guide to creating your Google account.
⦁ Go to Google’s official page, and choose your account type. You want to account for yourself or business purposes.
⦁ Click on create account
⦁ Give your name; In the username field, enter your username and create a password.
⦁ In the next step, confirm your password. Ensure your password matches the criteria.
⦁ Click on the next button and give your mobile number to verify your account. Click on the next button.
You can also create an account using your existing email id. To protect your account, you can add a recovery email or phone number.
1.2 Setting Up a Google My Business Account
⦁ Sign into your Google account on your desktop. If you don’t have one, create one. While creating a new Google account, use your business email.
⦁ Secondly, move to create your profile.
⦁ Type your business name; you can select the business from the list of suggested business types. If your business type is already taken, request ownership.
⦁ Search for your business category.
⦁ Navigate to the next button.
⦁ Select your location where your customers can visit.
If you have businesses with a storefront staffed during business hours: Click Yes.
Now enter the address of your business, on finishing click on the next button.
If you have businesses that don’t have a storefront staffed during business hours: Click No
⦁ Now give the service area of your business. You can enter your service area based on city or postal code. You are allowed to enter up to 20 service areas.
⦁ Now give your phone number and website URL.
⦁ Now navigate to next and you will have the option to create a website for your business.
⦁ Choose the finish button to complete the process.
Mapping Your Business on Google Maps Mapping Your Business on Google Maps
2. Verifying Your Business Location on Google Maps
After claiming your business profile on Google maps, you will have to verify it. While verifying check for all the details as you are the only one who can edit it. Here are simple steps to verify your business-
⦁ Map your business profile to Google maps.
⦁ When you mao your profile then you can verify it through various methods like a number, email, video, etc. You need to choose at least two methods. Your verification methods depend on your business category, region, support hours, etc.
⦁ Choose your verification method.
⦁ Verification can take up to 7 business days.
⦁ After you verify:
⦁ It can take a few weeks for your updated business info to show across Google.
⦁ You can update and add to your info at any time.
Mapping Your Business on Google Maps Mapping Your Business on Google Maps
3. Optimizing Your Business Listing Information
Optimizing your business listing will help you to engage with your customers.
3.1 Completing Your Business Profile
Your business profile will be visible across Google platforms once verification is completed. It would be hard for customers to find your business if your profile is not complete. The more information on your profile, the more engagement you receive.
If you complete your profile, then customers visiting your profile will be boosted by 50% and you can see a good lead conversion rate.
Hence add on information like-
Business hours
Location
Profile description
List of products and services
Photos and videos
Contact information
Customer reviews
3.2 Selecting the Right Business Category
The category helps you to build credibility and trust with your customers. Your category affects your local ranking as well. For example, if you run a ‘momo shop’ then locals will display your shop in a list of ‘Chinese restaurants’ ‘fast food’ ‘momos shops’. Your category plays a vital role in the allocation of place labels to your business.
Choosing your primary category has to be specific as it runs the entire business. You can select a category from the drop-down list or you can go for a generic category that describes most of the attributes of your business.
3.3 Adding Business Hours and Contact Information
When you are building your profile, ensure you give information like contact and business hours. This will add to your profile. The contact information will help customers reach you easily and quickly.
Update business hours to keep your customers up to date, and you can make changes if there are any at any point in time. Mark your main hours so that customers can reach you easily.
Mapping Your Business on Google Maps Mapping Your Business on Google Maps
4. Enhancing Your Listing with Photos and Videos
We recommend you add photos and videos of your business to build credibility with customers. And also it helps you to boost your rankings on the listing. You can encourage your customers to add photos and videos of your products and services.
Photos and videos are the creative way to reach your products, services, and offers to your customers. Both you and your customers can upload photos to your profile. To promote engagement with your customers and boost your ranking in search results, you should regularly add photos or videos to your profile.
4.1 Adding High-Quality Images of Your Business
Photos can bring a magic addition to your business. There are different types of photos you can add to your profile-
⦁ Cover photo: Add a cover photo at the top of your profile that describes the attributes of your business best. Cover photo acts as a first point to your business.
⦁ Logo: The logo is a representation of your business; it is a recognition of your business. For businesses that have their basic information, such as a phone number or hours of operation, the Business Profile highlights the logo.
⦁ Photos and videos: You can add photos and videos that describe the attributes of your business so that you can attract customers. Add good-quality photos to ensure the details are visible.
We recommend you add photos in either PNG or JPEG format. The photo should be of good quality; avoid filters and display the reality. To add photos, follow the below steps:
⦁ Go to your business profile.
⦁ Click on Promote and navigate to the photo
⦁ Select the photo and add it
4.2 Creating Virtual Tours of Your Business
A virtual tour is a form of semi-immersive VR technology that allows you to experience a certain location remotely. It gives the experience of reality in a virtual platform.
Creating a virtual tour of your business will help you to engage with your customers better. It gives a personalized experience to customers hence they can connect to your product and services better. They can connect to your business instantly. You can stay ahead of your competition.
Creating a virtual tour is easy, it requires Seamless 360 panoramic images, and A Virtual Tour Creator Tool.
Also Read : Google Maps Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide to Boosting Local Visibility and Engagement
5. Responding to Customer Reviews on Google Maps
Customer reviews play a vital role in terms of optimizing your business profile. Here is a complete guide on reviews and how to handle them.
Mapping Your Business on Google Maps Mapping Your Business on Google Maps
5.1 mportance of Responding to Reviews
The success of a business depends on interaction with customers hence Google says to interact with customers on Google listing. The best way to do this is by responding to reviews on Google listing. Responding to customer reviews shows that you value your customers and their feedback.
Good feedback from your customers on Google listing will enhance the visibility of your business and convert visitors into potential customers. By responding to reviews your build credibility with customers and google as well. By responding to reviews left by your customers you’re feeding Google’s EAT (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness––three factors Google uses to determine the credibility of brands and websites.)
Mapping Your Business on Google Maps Mapping Your Business on Google Maps
5.2 Tips for Responding to Positive and Negative Reviews
Well, we understood the importance of responding to reviews. We all have this question, how to handle reviews? How to respond to negative reviews? Here are a few tips on how to react to positive and negative reviews.
Positive reviews:
When you receive a positive review, that means you won the trust of your customer. There is no need for you to respond to all positive reviews, you can express gratitude with ‘ Thank you’. You can also use your response to share new or relevant information, but don’t make it too sales-focused as they are already satisfied with your business. Here are a few examples,
“ Thank you for sharing your experience”
“ We are happy to know you enjoyed our products or services”
Negative Reviews:
None of us wish for a negative review right, but at some point in time, we may receive negative reviews. Here are a few tips to handle them
⦁ Be courteous yet professional: Remember they are not satisfied with your business, hence avoid targeting them individually or being rude towards them.
⦁ Respond in a timely manner: Your honest response will be appreciated by customers.
⦁ Before responding to the review understand them: Check with the issue, and what disappointed you with your product or service. Be prompt and let them know the further steps you take to resolve the issue.
⦁ Apologize: When customers are unhappy, they expect you to take responsibility. Apologizing conveys that you are accepting your responsibility.
⦁ Take action: when you receive a negative review, send an email or call the customer to resolve the issue. This personalized approach will help you to regain the trust of your customers.
Mapping Your Business on Google Maps Mapping Your Business on Google Maps
6. Utilizing Insights to Monitor Your Google Maps Presence
Tracking your business performance over a period of time will help you to get some insights into your business and you can work on improving it. Here is how you can do it:
6.1 Tracking Your Listing’s Performance
To track your listing’s performance, follow the below steps-
⦁ Go to your business profile
⦁ Click on promote, and navigate to performance
⦁ At the top, select a date range for your report and select Apply.
Also Read: How do I advertise my business on Google maps?
6.2 Understanding Your Listing’s Impact on Search Results
Now, you can check how your profile is doing on Google maps. With these insights, you can analyze how popular is your business. Only managers and owners will be able to check this.
On the search bar, users put their queries regarding your business. At the beginning of every month, the search metric will be updated. It takes 5 days to show these updates.
Search queries display whenever your Business Profile shows up for a particular query. You cannot directly manage queries.
Mapping Your Business on Google Maps Mapping Your Business on Google Maps
7. Staying Up-to-Date with Google Maps Listing Guidelines
It is important to understand the basic guidelines of listing to provide high-quality information on Google. These guidelines will help you to avoid common mistakes and improve your business rankings.
⦁ Ensure your address area or location is specific and accurate
⦁ Keep your number of categories minimalistic to describe your business
⦁ There should be only one profile per business; multiple profiles can create a problem with respect to the display of information.
⦁ Represent your business as it’s consistently represented and recognized in the real world across signage, stationery, and another branding.
Conclusion
Google maps are the best direction tool; add your business to Google maps fetches a lot of benefits like increasing the visibility of your business, enhance position on google listings, building your brand, building credibility with customers, etc.