Okay, so I’ve got a confession to make. Even though I provide SEO services for my clients and I’m getting some really good results, I haven’t really dedicated the time to properly optimise my own website yet.
So it’s been a surprise to me that I’ve still been getting enquiries from people looking for and finding me through Google. And the reason for this is because I’ve got a Google Business Page. If you’re a business, then there’s absolutely no reason not to have one.
The Google Business Page is basically free advertising and it’s all about being visible when people look for you online, but in particular, appearing when people are searching in your local area.
Think of it this way: when you look for a product or service, what do you do? As well as asking other people for their recommendations, you’ll probably go straight online. And Google’s one of the best places to start.
The process of setting up your Google Business Page is fairly easy. Sometimes the trickiest part is the verification process. This is where you have to prove to Google that you are who you say you are.
There can be different methods for this and I’ve often found that it can be a bit of pot luck on how quickly this goes through, but just persevere.
I won’t waste the time to go through every step of setting up your page; here are some detailed instructions on how to do it that you can follow along with.
Once you’ve got your Google Business Page set and ready to go, here are a few tips on how to improve it.
1. Complete Your Details in Full
First of all, make sure to fill out as many details as you can. It’s good to not only provide Google with as much information about your business as possible, but it also helps tell your prospective clients more about your business and your services.
2. Consistency
When filling out the details, try and keep your company name consistent with how you have this across the web. And the same goes for your address and phone number. If you have these on your website and on your social media accounts, for example, try and keep them the same across the board.
3. Opening Hours
Next, with the opening hours, keep these realistic, but try and keep them open as wide as possible as you want to encourage people to get in contact with you.
4. Primary Category
You’ll be asked to choose a primary category. This is one of the most important decisions you’ll make as it’s one of the key factors in how your page will rank in Google. Make sure to choose something that properly reflects what you do and that you want to rank well for.
5. Secondary Categories
Next, add the secondary categories, which are based on the other services or synonyms of your main service that you’d like to rank for.
6. Business Description
When you fill out the description of your business, make sure to take time to write a unique description and include keywords of the services that you provide throughout.
7. Reviews
Finally, one of the other most important ranking factors are your reviews. So make sure to take time to ask happy clients to leave a Google review. It’s not just the number of reviews, but also the quality of the reviews that can make a difference.
This is just the basics of getting started. I highly recommend setting up or improving your Google Business page if you haven’t already done so.
The next step is optimising your website for local keywords so you can rank in standard Google search results and the map pack.
If you’d like any help with this, my recommendation would be to start with an SEO audit. You can quickly see where you currently stand in comparison to your competitors and what you need to do to improve.
If you’d like help with running an SEO audit for your business, I’d be happy to help so please get in touch.