Google My Business — Best Practices for Local Business

Google My Business is a free Google resource for local businesses. It allows a business owner to provide valuable information directly to Google, which helps a business appear in local results for both brand and non-brand queries. This guide details each section of the Google My Business platform to help you best leverage this free tool.

Best Practices for Google My Business

The Google My Business dashboard is navigated by its left-hand menu. This guide walks through each section of the menu.

Home

This section is the default entry point for users. Here, business owners can adjust the core information about their company. Owners can quickly: create a post, add a photo, or create an ad. In addition, owners can quickly see the latest customer photos and reviews. Also featured on the homepage is a snapshot of your business analytics (views on maps and search), a link to create a virtual tour, a link to access more analytics and a link to the Google My Business app. 

• Manage Photos (add photos of your business)
  • Upload an exterior shot of your entrance so customers know they are in the right place
    • Tip: If there’s a landmark or distinct object in front of your building, include it
  • Upload a welcoming shot of your lobby or immediate interior
  • Add photos of anything that makes your location or business unique or a unique selling proposition
  • Add photos any time you have something worthwhile to share
  • Flag inappropriate “By Customer” photos
  • Post photos to the most specific location – such as “interior,” “exterior,” “products” or “team”
• Add a Virtual Tour
  • Hire Google to do a 360 photo shoot of your business
    • Note: You could do one yourself, but a version from a Google vendor is more likely to be trusted by Google

Posts

Posts allow you to share interesting information with your potential customers. These posts display in your local listing knowledge graph and help increase engagement. Note that posts expire after 7 days. You’ll receive an email notification when your post is set to expire.

• Share relevant information with customers regarding:
  • Events
  • Specials
  • Business offers
  • Milestones
  • Flash sales
  • Employee of the month

Info

In this section, you can enter and adjust your core business attributes.

• Ensure your mailing address is correct
  • Google looks for consistency between all your online listings (hours, address, business name, phone number). If your address is inconsistent in different online resources, this diminishes the trust you’re building with Google
• List your  business hours and any special hours your business might have
• List your correct phone number for this location — not a call tracking number
  • Tip: Don’t include your vanity phone number here
• Include your main website URL and an appointment URL (like a contact page)
• List your correct and relevant business services and attributes
• Include a business description
• Add your opening date of this location
• Include photos of the business
• Add a store code (based on your own organization structure)
  • Note: This is typically used in larger companies and can help with organization
• Add labels if you need to sort through many listings (recommended for large companies with many local listings)

Insights

Insights are like Google Analytics for your local listing. Here, you’ll see data about how customers are finding and interacting with your local listing.

• Learn valuable insights about your audience’s interactions with your Google My Business listing:
  • How did visitors discover you?
    • Were they a direct (branded) visit?
    • Did they discover you through a non-branded keyword?
  • How many people found your business through search?
  • How many people found your business through Maps?
  • How many people clicked for directions?
    • Tip: You can see a heat map of their location
    • Tip: A breakdown by zip code and county is available
  • How many people visited your website?
  • How many people clicked to call your business?
    • Tip: You can sort phone calls by day
  • How are your businesses similar to yours performing?
    • Learn how many people viewed your photos vs businesses like you
    • Learn how many photos you have compared to similar businesses

Reviews

Reviews are a very powerful form of social proof.  Your aggregate review score will show up alongside your listing. The better your reviews, the more likely someone will be to interact with your listing over your competitor’s listing. In the top section of your reviews, you can toggle between reviews you have replied to and those you haven’t yet. This makes replying to all reviews easier than ever.

Interested in better managing your reviews? We’d love to hear more and share how we can help. Let’s talk.

• Respond to reviews — both good and bad
  • Tip: You can respond to reviews right from the Review Dashboard, making this process easy
  • Note: This is a bit different from Yelp, which suggests you only respond to negative reviews
  • Tip: Be as objective as possible (your responses are public), always stick to the facts and share proof to help validate your side of the story while providing a delightful experience

Messaging

Messaging is a new service in Google My Business and allows you to interact with your potential customers via text message. As mobile search continues to grow, this can be a powerful way to give customers feedback in real time. 

• Activate chat (if you have someone on staff who can accept SMS messages from customers), which is a great way to communicate with potential customers and answer questions in real time
  • Note: There are currently no options for when this is available, so you might be fielding texts at 3 am

 

Website

Don’t have a business yet? Google has your back and can get you online.

• Create a business website using Google’s themes and styles using their WYSIWYG design platform
  • Please note: DTC has not tested this feature

Users

From here you can control which staff members and partners have access to manage and view your Google My Business account.

• Provide access to your partners and people responsible for updating your Google My Business
  • Tip: Periodically review this section and remove old employees and legacy web partners

Create an Ad

It wouldn’t be Google if they didn’t pitch advertising! 

• Advertise your business on AdWords
  • Note: DTC offers expert PPC management services if you need help

Add New Location

Great news! You’re growing! No need to create a separate account — you can manage all of your locations from the Google My Business dashboard.

• Add additional locations under the same master Google My Business account

Manage Locations

Great news! You’re growing! No need to create a separate account — you can manage all of your locations from the GMB dashboard.

• Add additional locations under the same master Google My Business account

Settings

In this section, you can customize your Google My Business experience.

• Set your default language, preferred email and alerts preferences
• Set alerts for new reviews
• Enable alerts for changes to the health of your listing
• Be sure to also download the Google My Business app for control when you’re away from your office

Support

Confused with Google My Business? This section provides some baseline help and guidance.

• Search through the FAQs and most popular Google My Business articles.
  • Tip: You can also contact Google, depending on the issue, though this will route you through a troubleshooting wizard to try to solve your issue without a direct contact first