Google today announced that the name of its local ad platform, Google My Business (GMB), will change to Google Business Profile. The Google Business Profile is a free list of companies from Google that allows you to provide details and photos of your company, including its location, services and products. To maintain high-quality information on Google, follow this list of guidelines for local businesses. These guidelines can help you avoid common problems.
When you search for a company on Google, you've probably looked at the map and the list of companies that accompany it that may appear at the top of the search results. Local SEO and Google business profile marketing are not the same thing, but learning to use GBP as a tool and asset is key to boosting the growth of local businesses, due to Google's near-monopoly. Verifying your company shows Google that you do manage the business listing you're trying to request. According to Google's Consumer Barometer, 40% of local business search engines want to find the business hours of local businesses.
After the verification step, Google will ask you to add more information about your company and to subscribe to the relevant services, depending on the business category you have chosen. Local packages are one of the main screens that Google uses to classify and present local business information in its index. Google has a feature that allows users to send you messages directly from your Google My Business listing. This includes businesses with a physical location (such as a restaurant or store) and companies that provide services by meeting with customers elsewhere (such as consultants or plumbers).
There is a clear possibility that Google could, at some point, consolidate the user experience and make local packages used by default in Google Maps instead of the local search engine. How many impressions were produced in relation to searches for the name or location of your company (called Direct), general searches that do not specify the name of the company but refer to what you offer (called Discovery) and searches related to your company's brands (called Branded). Small, local businesses make up the largest business sector in the United States, making local SEO the most common form of SEO. Verified business locations are “more likely to appear in local search results for Google products, such as Maps and Search.” First, let's agree on what Google business profiles (formerly Google My Business) are and how to be part of them.
Therefore, your job is to be aware of the best and the worst aspects of Google's fascinating business profile platform and to take as much control as possible over how customers view your brand in Google territory. Therefore, if a user is close to your company and searches for a general term such as “restaurant”, your company is more likely to appear as a geolocalized result if it is well optimized (we'll see more optimization tips later).
