An Introduction to Google My Business
You might be familiar with Google My Business (or GMB). It’s Google’s exciting FREE tool for business owners to make sure that their brand is represented properly across the Google search network.
It makes managing your business much easier. It also pulls all of Google’s business services into one handy platform, including:
- Reviews – Manage your reviews that customers post, which will be seen by people searching for businesses like yours. You’ll also get those lovely stars you often see.
- Google Analytics (GA) – From one place you can quickly see all of your website’s stats, including visitors, bounce rates, and much more.
- Insights – See some useful information about your visibility, engagement levels, and trends across your industry.
- Google Maps (GMaps) – Manage whether or not you appear on the most widely-used mapping system on the internet, and how you appear.
How do I claim my Google business page?
The first steps to taking control of your data on Google is by claiming your business through the GMB portal. There are three steps:
- Set up your Google account
- Add or Claim your business
- Verify your business
Set Up Your Google Account
In order to log in to the GMB platform, you must have a Google account. If you have an existing Gmail account you can use that, or create a new account.
You can also set up a Google account with a business email address. To do this, simply click on the “Use my current email address instead” option
Add or Claim Your Business
Once you’ve signed into a Google account, you can Add or Claim your business. To do so, visit the Google My Business dashboard, and then search for your business by name or address. If your business then shows up in the menu, click on the listing. You can then claim it. If your business doesn’t appear, you can click None Of These Match and then enter your business information for the first time.
Verify Your Business
Now that your business information has been entered, you can verify its accuracy and confirm to Google that you own it and represent it. There are three ways of verifying your business with Google, and they are:
-
Mail
Google will send a postcard with a code on it. When this arrives, add the code to your GMB dashboard
-
Phone
Google will call you on the registered business phone number and give you a verification code, which you can enter on the GMB dashboard
-
Instant
If your business’ website happens to be verified with the Google Search Console then you might get verified instantly if your website was verified with the same Google account
All done!
Now that you’re all done, you’ve got your business listed on Google and made it easier for people to find you – hooray!
Google My Business optimisation should form part of you Local Search strategy. If you need any assistance, please get in touch with Fifteen’s Digital Team who can offer help and advice on what to do next.