Google My Business – What is it?

It is a free platform provided by Google for entrepreneurs that portray how these would appear on Google Search Engines. On the platform, the business name, location, and hours are featured.

The benefit of Google My Business (GMB) is the convenience of doing business by responding to customer queries and monitoring their reviews, adding photos, accepting bookings, gaining insights about the searches made, and sharing updates of a particular business.

How does it Matter

At the outset, it enhances business visibility through its search engines.

Secondly, it is beneficial for Local Business. It shows the “near me” business queries made online, which gives insight into connecting with new customers and getting to know their search behavior.

The accessibility of a customer searching for local business contacts is very high consequent upon searches made online. But, it is vital that your business has a physical location and not confined to an online facility for enabling Google to materialize face-to-face interaction with the customer.

Features of GMB

1. Insights: Google provides basic ideas about customer patterns through online searches made about a particular business. It also helps the company to understand the needs of its customers better. It ultimately helps in business optimization.
2. Posts: Posting the customer with updates, offers, incentives, and invitations further helps increase business volume. The offers can be time-lined through time limits, and contests and franchise announcements are useful business tools.
3. Bookings: The customers can be encouraged to book their appointments or book services with a click.
4. Review Management: Reviews play an essential role in the brand promotion of particular business activity. It is an equally reliable source of information that is equivalent to a friend’s advice. So a constant interaction with the customer is critical.
5. Q&A: A quick response to a customer query is very critical. The regularly asked questions must be pinned for future reference.
6. Photos: Uploading photographs/ images of high resolution and location are also significant. These are the first and, of course, lasting impressions in the minds of customers. 

Google My Business Future Updates in 2020

For ages now, Google My Business is a marketing tool in the field of digital marketing that has helped numerous businesses expand their online presence. Far yet again, GMB has come up with useful updates that will improve your business’s growth and development. Google My Business also introduced new advancements and updates due to the global outbreak of deadly coronavirus. Here are some of the latest updates added by GMB for business enhancement.

1.Consistent Listing Updates

Google is continually trying to bring your business on the top-ranking and gain immersive online presence among your target audience. It is indeed a challenging task to let Google recognize the relevance of your business and its existence. As an entrepreneur or digital marketer, you should work dedicatedly on NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number) and other such directories to build a notable online presence. It would be best if you also made changes to your business or working hours accurately to help the GMB criterion recognize you.

Also, Read – Changing Paradigm Shift in SEO Services

2.Welcome invites will help you welcome new visitors.

Google My Business’s “Follow” button helps businesses in reaching customers or potential users in a much faster way. Whenever a user clicks on the all-new ‘Follow’ button, he/she will be able to get all the upcoming details and notifications related to the business. It helps a company in showing up in Google’s map listings. Entrepreneurs that want to list their Business on Google Maps’ Listing can do that with the help of Google My Business.

3.Add a short name for Listing.

Short names would be helpful for companies to add an accurate location to their brand name. There is a new option in the Info section of Google My Business that allows you to include a short business name for the Listing and the URL. Short names will let businesses consider users to their profile more easily. Ultimately, users will also be able to search Google Maps with short names as well. As per the GMB latest updates, entrepreneurs can change their short name thrice a year. The condition for the business’s short name is that it should be associated with the market accurately.

4.Social Icons for Improved Connections

Google My business now enables businesses to connect their social media platforms via social icons to help users find their companies and brands easily. According to GMB, it will help businesses in gaining online presence and user engagement. Now, entrepreneurs can link social media icons like Facebook, Twitter, Sound cloud, YouTube, MySpace, Pinterest, and Tumblr with some coding. For this, businesses can use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to code generation.

5.Request a Quote Button

With the help of GMB’s new update of ‘Request a Quote,’ online customers will now be able to communicate directly and instantly with businesses. It will be a significant update to all companies to increase their online presence and to show up in Google’s listings. ‘Request a quote’ button is now also available in the mobile version due to the increasing use of smartphones among users.

Summing Up

Google My Business has become an integral part of almost all businesses now, regardless of their size. With the modern advancements and GMB updates, you need to add modifications to their business criterion. These updates will leave a lasting impact on businesses’ online presence and overall growth. You will be able to get ahead of your counterparts in no time by introducing these updates to your already rising business.