Why? Results.
Google my Business gives us insights from the dashboard but knowing what to do with them and how to turn them into posts that convert can be a struggle at times. Google my Business insights have a long way to go before they give us all the information we need but used in conjunction with other marketing tools they can be a great asset. Regardless of how good the insights are though, they are useless unless you use them to improve your local listing search results.
What we know already and have re-inforced from looking at the insights, is that people search in different ways and from different devices. From your insights, you’ll see the number of times potential customers have found you by typing in the name of your business or address by searching directly.
Direct searches
When someone searches using either your business name or a location it is reported as a direct search. These type of searches are usually from people already familiar with your business or have maybe heard about your brand from another form of advertising and have high, focussed buyer intent.
For multi-location brands and franchises in particular, consistency for brand recognition is essential across the Google my Business platform. By maintaining consistent names and categories across all your business locations not only helps the search engines identify you but also helps users to quickly identify your business on Google Maps and Search Results.
By looking for a category, product or service that you offer.
Google My Business SEO is actually a thing right alongside technical, on page and off page SEO. By optimising your Google My Business page for non-branded keywords and maintaining a strong local SEO strategy we will help bring in more customers to your business as well as attract potential franchisees to your business. By looking at the insights reports on the dashboard you can see the most popular keywords used to find your listing. We take this information and use it to create more targetted posts and ads.
Or by looking for a brand that relates to your business
Google Top Contributor Joy Hawkins from posted in the localsearchforum clarifying that basically branded searches are searches for brands that you sell (even if it’s a part of your business name) that returns a list of results.
Customer Actions
Once customers arrive on your Google my Business listing, ideally we want them to take an action. Type of actions that customers can take include:
- Direction requests
- Phone Calls
- Visits to your website
- Messaging/Chat
Performance overviews are available from your home page with more detailed information on the time and day these activities took place from your insight dashboard.
This information gives allows us to target your advertising campaigns to more specifically. Phone call insights allow you to see the time of day and day of the week that people are looking at your page, again allowing more targetted ads.
Review Management
By responding to your reviews, both good and bad not only shows that you value your customers but could also have an impact on how often your listing shows in the search results. Not everyone has the time or the inclination to manage their reviews and as it’s such an important part of the Google my Business optimisation, local agencies often get involved.
It’s not enough to leave a standard response when answering reviews. Customers have gone to the effort of leaving a review, the least a company can do is acknowledge them. Bad reviews, when genuine, give company owners and both the franchisee and franchisor the opportunity to learn and address the issue within the business.
Unfortunately, fake reviews are a fact of life today, unless a review is actually abusive to a member of staff, it’s staying put no matter how much you grovel to Google. If a disgruntled employee decides to put up a series of one-star reviews and no comments, unfortunately, they are also staying.
Until Google gets better at handling fake reviews, the only way to fight back is to try and outweigh them with good ones. If your customer has had a great experience in your store or restaurant tell them how appreciated it would be if they left you a great review; encourage them to take a picture of the product, food or service they have enjoyed and if they can attach a high-quality image then that’s the perfect combination.
Maintainance of business information.
Anyone on Googe can suggest an edit to your business, in fact, Google encourages it with a handy ‘Suggest an Edit’ link
If these edits are coming from a disgruntled ex-franchisee, ex-employee or nasty competitor the results could be catastrophic to your business.
Phone numbers can be changed, business hours updated and unless your business has been claimed and verified you may well not find out until it’s too late and your phone calls, visits to stores etc are slowly diminishing.
When appointing a Scottish Google My Business Agency these edits are monitored and maintained as and when they happen.
Monitoring Customer Photos
One bad image on a Google My Business page, regardless of the location, can affect the whole brand image.
Images are everything, especially if you’re enticing people to come in for your food. People love to put images of half-eaten meals up on Google (no idea why but they do) which can be extremely off-putting for any potential customer. A Google my Business Agency will monitor these images and flag them to Google to request removal.
Businesses with photos on their listings receive nearly 50% more direction requests and 35% more click-throughs to your websites (if that’s the intention of the post) than listings without photos. Photo insights are available from the dashboard and include both the photo quantity compared to the competition and the number of times your photos have been viewed.
Marketing Creative
Google posts are in essence free advertising from Google and if optimised correctly could be a massive source of lead generation for your business. Depending on the industry you’re in, posts on Google can be ‘What’s New’, ‘Events’ ‘Products’ and Special Offers all of which will outshine the competition and entice your customers if they are paired up with top quality images.
Don’t make your customer think! If you have a special offer and the potential customer is searching for you, Google My Business allows you to post it right there in front of their eyes. There is so much opportunity depending on the industry you’re in and we can show you how to take advantage of that.
Communication Management
Allow your customers to message you via Google My Business
Switch on your messaging and give your customers an alternative way to communicate with you directly from maps! Switch the feature on and off depending on time management and answer in a timely, efficient and professional way. By making yourself available to customers at the exact moment they are looking for you will also increase the chances of them visiting your store or buying your services.
Having a central resource manage, and optimise your Google My Business pages for each of your stores, restaurants or services, ensures that brand consistency is maintained and phone calls, sales and footfall are increased.
For most, trying to work their way around Google is a complete nightmare, for local Google my Business agencies it’s a hobby. Using a Google my Business agency headed up by an experienced, results-driven SEO will lighten the load and let you concentrate on what you do best. Especially suited for franchisors looking to attract potential franchisees whilst also attracting and retaining your customer base.
Whether you have the one shop front or multi-location businesses, contact the best Google my Business Agency in Scotland today to take advantage of all the exciting opportunities Google has to offer you. We use insights and measurable targets that result in more phone calls, sales and footfall all at an affordable price.
