A Beginner’s Guide In Claiming Your Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile is a powerful tool that can make your local visibility thrive. It strengthens your online presence, thereby making you more visible and discoverable to organic searchers. It would make sense, after all, to target the people in your local area first before expanding to a wider reach.
As an SEO company in Los Angeles, we’ve developed an easy-to-follow guide to getting your profile started.
Adding or Claiming Your Google Profile
The first step can go two ways: you either add a new profile or claim an existing profile. Start by searching for your business on Google’s Business Profile Manager and see if it turns up.
If you’re an established business, then it’s probably already up on Google. All you need to do now is claim it for yourself and start managing it. If you find that somebody else has already claimed it, you can request ownership by requesting access.
If you can’t find your business, then click the Add your business to Google option.
Verifying Your Google Profile
The next step is verification. Google wants to know you’re the true owner of the business, and it does this by sending you a postcard to the business’s listed address. On the postcard is a unique verification code you enter on the profile manager.
Receiving the postcard can take up to five business days. Verifying your business can take several weeks.
In some cases, you may be able to verify through phone, email, video recording, or through Search Console. These options show up automatically when you choose your verification method.
Additionally, to maintain accuracy and up-to-date information, Google may ask you to reverify once in a while. Just follow the same procedure.
Optimizing Your Google Profile
We’re warning you now, optimizing your Google profile is a lot of work. It’s so much effort that we had to put a more detailed guide on it in another article! Putting in the effort, however, is essential if you want to rank high on search engines.
Here’s a general checklist of what you need to do. As we’ve mentioned, you can take a look at the article we linked for a more comprehensive guide.
- Fill out all the necessary information like store hours, contact details, and products and services.
- Add keywords to your description.
- Make sure your business hours are updated.
- Upload photos and videos.
- Manage and reply to customer reviews.
- Allow customers to contact you through Google Business Profile.
- Post promotional content like discounts, events, and product releases.
- Give updates related to current events (e.g., enhanced safety measures due to COVID-19).
- Highlight convenient attributes (e.g., Black-owned, dog-friendly, gluten-free).
- Showcase product catalog.
Monitoring Your Google Profile
Google has a pretty cool tool called Insights that lets you monitor your business. It gathers data about your profile that you can use to make adjustments and improvements.
Here’s a couple of things you can look at:
How People Find You
This shows you the total number of searches you’ve gotten, how many customers searched for your business name specifically (i.e., direct search), and how many customers looked for something you offered and was directed to you (i.e., discovery searches).
Where on Google They Found You
People can find your business through Google’s search engines or on Google Maps. This section lets you know which.
It also tells you which of your offered products or services led the searcher to you. You can use this data to figure out popular and seasonal products.
What People Did Next
This lets you know what people did after they found your profile. They could have visited your website, requested directions, called you, or viewed your photos.
Another interesting feature is a map that shows you which direction your potential customers are coming from. If most of your customers are coming from the east, or if you’ve got a lot of them from a particular area, you will know.
Phone Calls
As the name suggests, this section tells you when (at what day and what time) and how often your customers call you.
Photos and Videos
This lets you know how many people are viewing your profile’s photos and videos.
Conclusion
We hope that our guide was helpful to you. If you still have any questions about Google Business Profile, or would just like help with SEO in general, then feel free to contact Drive Traffic Media at (310)341-3939. We offer SEO services in Los Angeles.
