Did you know that 56% of local businesses have yet to claim their business’ Google My Business listing? That means more than half of businesses aren’t updating their clients on their address, their work hours, phone numbers, and potentially their website.
Most people find your location by googling it, clicking on the address, and having it all immediately inputted into their phone’s GPS. When your GMB isn’t updated with accurate information, your customers aren’t able to do that. How are you going to get sales then?
86% of people find how to get to physical business locations through Google Maps, which is powered by GMB. If that wasn’t reason enough to claim your GMB listing, then here are some more reasons why your business needs it.
What Do You Get From a Google My Business Listing?
To claim your business’s Google My Business listing, you just have to ask for it. There’s no payment you have to make and no membership you have to sign up for. Any information you could offer at no monetary cost would be useless because the odds are guaranteed that Google already has it. The only thing that getting your GMB listing can cost you is a short amount of time. This is something worth sacrificing time for, especially when you consider everything you’re getting for free.
SEO Site Traffic
While you don’t need a website to claim your GMB listing, this significantly increases your SEO if you have one. A GMB profile inserts accurate information about your business that Google can catalog into its database and search engines. Without the profile, there aren’t many other ways to confirm accurate information about your business.
Accuracy is important to the Google Search algorithm because Google’s business is connecting you to the sites you need. How it does this amounts to the information sites provide, and if Google can’t trust the text on the site, even for something as small and specific as an address, they can’t risk recommending your site.
Even if you don’t have a website, the GMB listing will at least capture SEO that your competitors may be trying to take traffic from you.
Helps Customers Find Your Business
As businesses get bigger and evolve, they need more space. It’s natural to move locations, but how do you let your customers know? You can’t rely on word-of-mouth or telling customers as they walk in. You can tell people when you’re moving, but unless you’re handing out flyers or cards for the new address, they’re not going to remember it when you tell them.
Even then, what if you have a relatively short waiting period between when you sign a new lease/contract and your move-in date? Then it’s possible that some of your regulars won’t come in before you can tell them.
If someone goes to your old office, storefront, or mailbox, and you’re not there, they’ll check online. If your GMB Listing isn’t updated, not only will they not find you, they’ll be frustrated. That’s a regular customer you potentially lost.
And this isn’t just for locations. Simply changing your contact information or your hours, and having that not match what people see online, will leave potential customers unhappy. Coming to a business location to find you closed at 4:00 PM after you changed your business hours to end at 5:00 PM would justifiably upset any customer. Claim your GMB listing so that doesn’t happen.
Makes Customer Interaction Easier
When you connect your phone number or at least the Google My Business app to your listing, you give your customers the ability to contact you. This is an easy way for them to call you by phone with a button on the listing, or to message you through GMB’s messaging features.
Interaction and communication with your clients can only be a good thing. This both endears you to them and helps you make that final sale. Often, the thing they’re calling or messaging about is what’s keeping them from giving you their money. Whether it’s something as small as clarification on your work hours, or something larger like whether or not your product has materials they can or can’t be around. Make it easier for them to ask.
It’s Easy to Claim Your GMB! ENX2 Marketing Can Help!
It’s not difficult to claim your Google My Business listing, we can walk you through it, or even do it for you if you have trouble. We can even make sure that it is complete with all the information it should have, as well as update it as you need. Once you have a GMB listing set up, we can coordinate it with social media and content marketing efforts, including GMB posts, and SEO optimization. For help navigating Google’s many different marketing services, contact ENX2 Marketing for help.
