The Ultimate Guide to GMB Optimization: Boosting Your Local Business Visibility

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Whether you are an online store or run a brick-and-mortar business, optimizing your website and other online platforms for local searches is vital. Businesses today can only survive and thrive with a strong online presence, and Local SEO is a critical part of it.

Optimizing your business's online presence becomes even more vital to target and attract potential customers in a specific area. One of the best ways to accomplish this is through a Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business).

Since many people are unfamiliar with the new name, we will refer to Google Business Profile by its previous name, Google My Business (GMB). The idea is to make this resource or guide available to as many people as possible, including those searching for GMB Optimization Services instead of Google Business Profile (GBP) services.

Coming back to the topic at hand, the Google My Business listing is the first thing that pops up when people search for a specific type of business in a particular area. The listing provides these people with the name, address, phone number, and operating hours of businesses that are most relevant to their search. It also highlights the best features of those businesses and provides their website URLs and directions to their physical location.

Research finds that local information accounts for over 45% of all searches on Google and a high percentage of local searches made on mobile convert. Google My Business Optimization Services can ensure your business gets seen by people in your area searching for the products or services you offer.

In short, using a Google Maps Optimization Service can help your business reach potential customers by driving the relevant traffic to your website or store. Let's dive into the steps you must follow to optimize your Google My Business (GMB) profile for local searches.

1. Select The Right Business Categories

If you do not accurately categorize your business, Google will not know what you offer and will be unable to match you with local searches for your products or services.

It is easier said than done because you need to choose from over 4000 categories, many of which are unclear. You need to determine the primary and secondary categories that best describe your business and your products and services.

You must choose one primary and nine secondary categories related to your business to optimize your Google My Business listing for local searches. Ideally, the primary category should be the main offering or what best describes your business. The secondary categories can mix your nine most essential products and services.

If you cannot find a secondary category matching the products or services you offer, look for terms or categories that are the closest to them. Or you can select secondary categories for which your business wants to rank in local searches.

Choosing the right primary and secondary categories is vital because it can determine whether your business appears in the Local 3-Pack or relevant searches in Google Maps. If you ask a Google My Business Profile Optimization Service how to select categories for GMB, they will recommend the following:

• Select categories relevant to your business with a high search volume
• Select categories that show up on the GMB listing of your closest competitors
• Select categories you believe match your most profitable products or services.

In addition to the above, make sure you follow Google's guidelines for selecting categories, or your account may be suspended due to quality issues.

2. Add Accurate Contact Details

The first thing GMB Optimization Services will do to optimize your GMB listing for local searches is ensure your business's basic contact details, i.e., name, address, and phone number (NAP), are consistent across all your online platforms. They will also make sure this information is accurate and up-to-date.

Accurate contact details will help you rank higher in relevant local searches and increase your credibility amongst potential customers. Moreover, you will be able to interact with them through multiple challenges. Besides accurately adding the NAP details of your business, provide the following in your GMB listing:

• Operating hours
• Website URL

Doing the above will help you reach potential customers and allow them to contact you for the next steps.

3. Update Business Hours

We briefly touched upon this: your business hours in GMB must be accurate and up-to-date. It includes the days and hours your business is open for customers Description: Follow these steps Description: Follow these stepsduring the week, holidays, and special closures during the year when your staff is unavailable to service them.

It is essential to do this because you want customers to show up at your store or order from you when you are open for business. You want to ensure you get all the sales because your operating hours in GMB were updated.

4. Effectively Utilize Attributes

One of the main strategies a GMB Optimization Service uses to optimize a GMB listing for local searches entirely is using the platform's attributes. These features allow you to highlight specific qualities of your business, such as the amenities you offer or particular services for niche customers.

After you add the relevant attributes to your GMB profile, they will help you to show up in local searches using these keywords, which will further enhance the visibility of your business online. Remember that attributes appear not just on Google Search but also on Google Pay, Google Maps, and other Google products and services.

Thinking long and hard about the GMB attributes you want to add is vital. These attributes will often overlap with the categories you choose on GMB. Make sure the attributes you add are unique so your business can show up in local searches using different keywords or phrases.

Another thing to remember is that Google accommodates searchers on different devices and platforms by tweaking how the information is presented to them. The purpose is to show the information in a way that is optimized for viewing on that platform. An example would be attributes appearing as "highlights" with relevant graphics on Google Maps instead of the list format appearing when people search on their desktop browser.

Sometimes, attributes will not appear on the local knowledge panel and will instead be placed under the 'about' or 'overview' tab. The crux of all this is that if you do not see your attributes appear on a particular Google platform, it doesn't mean that there aren't people searching for them on other Google platforms.

Make sure you choose attributes that are most relevant to your business and local customers, as Google is constantly tweaking when and where they appear. Also, update attributes as changes happen in your business, and some previously added GMB attributes are no longer relevant to your business or customers. Professional Google Business Optimization Services can help you ensure this.

5. Regularly Update Posts

It is essential to regularly update your GMB posts to boost your local SEO efforts. You should aim to update your post at least once per week. There are several reasons for this.

Firstly, Google loves it when you post fresh content. It shows Google that you have an active and engaged business, which helps you improve your local search ranking. Another reason to do this is to keep your audience engaged with helpful content that solves their problems.

When you do this, your audience or customers are likelier to leave positive comments on your posts or even give your business a positive review. This will prompt Google to rank you higher in search results, increasing your business's online visibility.

6. Respond to Reviews

A vital factor in the Google search engine ranking algorithm is the level of engagement with your GMB profile. A significant part of this is your responses to reviews. Responding to customer reviews shows Google that your business is active and engaged, increasing your chances of appearing in local search results.

If you are falling behind, you can catch up with your competitors by simply responding to all the reviews you receive from customers. Managing and responding to customer reviews is a recommended strategy for improving your ranking in Google's local search results.

Also, responding to your customer reviews and feedback shows potential customers that you value them. Positive reviews can drive a lot of foot traffic to your store.

7. Use High-Quality Images to Engage Potential Customers

You should not overlook the importance of having photos of your business on your GMB profile. These pictures will give people a visual sense of your business and attract potential customers.

Consider photos on GMB as your business's internet front door—they are the first thing people see when they find your business online. You can use these photos to highlight your services or products and give customers a glimpse of your location.

After people find your business in local search results, they are most likely to look up your location on Google Maps, and when they do that, they will first come across photos of your place.

The more appealing photos you add to your GMB profile, the more likely you are to get calls, clicks to your website, and requests for directions from potential customers. These photos will also add credibility to your business, showing it as a legitimate and trustworthy establishment.

Also, adding photos to GMB helps a lot with local SEO. However, you must add the right kinds of photos. These photos show your products, services, or location through visually appealing images.

8. Track Performance Through GMB Insights

GMB Insights (now called Profile Performance Metrics) can help you improve your business's ranking in local search results. You can find out the following using GMB Insights:

• The number of people who viewed your profile;
• How they found it; and
• The most common ways they interact with it.

In addition to the above, GMB Insights allows you to monitor the following key metrics to discover how customers are interacting with your GMB profile:

• Searches: the search queries people use to find your business
• Users who viewed your profile: the number of unique visitors who visited your profile
• Direction requests: the number of people looking for directions to your physical location
• Calls: the number of people who clicked on the call button showing your business's provided number
• Website clicks: the number of people who clicked on the website URL you provided
• Total interactions: the total interactions with your Google Business Profile

You can use these metrics to gain critical insights into your business and improve underperforming areas. A professional Google Business Profile Optimization Service can help you with this.

9. Use Google Posts to Share Updates and Promotions

A final strategy for optimizing your GMB listing for local search results recommended by Google Listing Optimization Services is sharing updates and promotions with your target audience using Google Posts. You can create these posts directly on your GMB profile.

The posts you create to share updates and promotions will appear on the results performed on Google Search and Google Maps. Therefore, using posts on GMB is a great way to engage your audience and keep up with all the happenings in your business. Google will also reward you for this in the form of a higher ranking in local search results.

Conclusion

Using this guide or the steps outlined above is a great way to optimize your GMB profile for local search results. It will help you rank higher in local searches of people looking for your products and services and ensure your credibility with them.

The good news is that you don't need to perform all these steps yourself. Instead, you can hire professional Google My Business Optimization Services to do it for you.

Dave is Sr. Editor at Content Development Pros. He leads a small army of content writers that help small and large business get results through amazing content.