All businesses in the world have one basic need – customers. After all, a business without customers is nothing more than a hobby. There are many ways to bring customers to businesses, but when the tech giant, Google, dedicates one special feature to this subject – you cannot ignore it. This feature is, of course, “Google My Business” (better known by its English name Google My Business). Even though it is a tool designed to connect customers with businesses, many businesses in Israel do not give it the attention it deserves.
Later in this article, I will share with you the main tools for promoting “Google My Business”, but before that, let’s take a moment to understand more deeply this incredible tool that Google provides to businesses for free.
What is Google My Business?
“Google My Business” was born as part of Google Maps and is dedicated to Google advertising for businesses, designed to allow users to locate local businesses for various services they are searching for on the world’s largest search engine. If at this point you are telling yourselves that being on Google Maps is nice but doesn’t bring customers, know that A – you are wrong. B – since Google first launched this feature, it has received quite a few steroids that turn it into an insane lead magnet for businesses.
Later on, I will discuss how “Google My Business” does this, but in the meantime, it is worth knowing that this is a real lead magnet that can bring your business hot leads and customers with very high purchase intent. In addition, it also significantly shortens the time between the moment a user first discovers your business and the moment they pull out their credit card and pay you. Usually, calls from customers who arrive at the business via this feature get straight to the point: “How much does it cost?”, “When can I come?”, etc.
Google Business is displayed in both Google Search and Google Maps
Google My Business listings appear for relevant search terms both in searches users perform on Google Search and in searches users perform on Google Maps. When users directly search for your company name, your business profile will appear on desktop to the right of the search results and on mobile view it will appear below the Google Ads and the first organic result. Appearing with a business profile in both Search and Maps (which are very popular Google products) will also help make the business more attractive and accessible to your audience.
How much does Google My Business cost?
Google My Business is a free tool that any company or business can integrate into their marketing strategy. Optimizations and ongoing use of GMB won’t cost you money either, making it an essential addition for any business. Alongside the free publication of business details, updates, posts, opening hours, reviews you received from users, and more – you can also increase exposure for your business profile through paid advertising on Google My Business, which will generate more inquiries for your business.
Displaying business information in Google Search
By registering your business on Google My Business, you can update and display your vital business information in real time to customers searching for your business or a specific service you offer. Updating details is done through the GMB account, and the information displayed to customers will always be the most up-to-date. Unlike changing details on a website, where it may take some time for the page to be crawled in the search network and for your changes to be shown to users in Google search – on Google My Business, the details are updated immediately after you make the change. These are the details you should enter into your Google Business Profile:
- Company name
- Address
- Mobile phone number
- Recent photos
- Industry
- Opening hours
- Reviews
- Website
- Posts published on Google My Business
What are the advantages of Google My Business?
First Advantage: Exposure
Google My Business has several very clear advantages, starting with the tremendous exposure your business can get. In fact, much of the time when a user searches on Google for a specific service or product, the first organic results they will see are from “Google Business” (“Google My Business”). In fact, there are quite a few cases where businesses invest thousands and tens of thousands of shekels in promoting their website, yet receive far less exposure than businesses that promoted their “Google My Business” profile.
Second Advantage: Warming Up Leads
When we don’t know a business that offers a service or product we want, it can be very helpful to get recommendations from previous customers. Google My Business allows users to quickly and easily see what previous customers think of the business. This is expressed both in star ratings (from one to five) and in written reviews. For businesses and freelancers, this is a wonderful thing, because if there is one thing customers want before purchasing a particular service or product, it is to know that it is a good service or product. They want to know that it is a reliable business and an excellent service provider. Therefore, reviews and ratings can work wonders when it comes to warming up leads.
Third Advantage: Call to Action
After a potential customer is exposed to your business and even feels confident getting service from you thanks to your reviews and ratings on Google My Business, it’s time to turn them from a potential customer into a paying customer. The first step is in the customer’s hands – contacting the business. Google My Business helps you here as well: clear and effective call-to-action buttons designed to get potential customers to call you, visit your website, or navigate to your business!
Call-to-action buttons also vary depending on the business category and how the user searches. For example, call-to-action buttons for restaurants will usually be to view photos. The reason is clear: Google also knows we eat with our eyes. When a customer searches for a service or product on their smartphone, the call-to-action button will be a phone call. Simple and easy. But if they perform the same search on a desktop computer, the call-to-action button will be visiting the website. In this case too, Google understands the user’s mindset and adapts to make things easier for your potential customers.
Fourth Advantage: Very Low Competition
Here we are already entering territory that is very local, here in Israel. Business promotion on Google My Business is still in its infancy, and many businesses don’t even understand the importance of this crazy feature designed to bring them more customers.
Every marketer knows that we are constantly competing. The question is always where I can invest the least to get the most. As always with Google, once you grab a good spot in the search results, you will stay there until someone else becomes better than you at promoting their business.
The thing is, because there is no significant competition on Google My Business here in Israel, it will be relatively easy for you to reach the top spots in search results and stay there! I promise you that once you manage to do this, you won’t understand how you hadn’t done it until now.
Fifth Advantage: Google My Business is Free!
There are quite a few marketers and businesses who know exactly how much they spent on paid advertising to get a lead, what the ROI is, and generally how much a lead costs them. On Google My Business, every lead – a customer’s phone call, website visit, or navigation to the business – is completely free! It’s truly a shame to miss this opportunity.
Key Points for Creating a Winning Business Page on Google My Business
First Tip: Keyword Research
Your way to get the most customers with Google My Business is to reach the top of the search results. To do this, you need to do keyword research, just like standard SEO work. However, because this is a market with much lower competition than website SEO, you can also settle for fairly basic keyword research:
If you are business consultants, type “business consultant” into Google, and see what comes up in the results. Is there a small map and a few businesses? Great!
Now scroll down and see what Google suggests under “related searches”. Click on the various searches and see which businesses appear in Google My Business. Choose what fits best and what seems to have the least competition.
Second Tip: Organization and Consistency
One of the things that will boost your business page on Google isn’t even located within the business page itself, but in various places across the web: ensure that your business appears on as many relevant websites as possible, and it is important to check that the details there are identical to the details appearing on Google My Business.
The most important details are: business name, address, and phone number. Make sure these details are as accurate as possible.
Third Tip: Give Google What It Likes
Google is a giant machine thirsty for all the information it can possibly get, and you want to give it that information. This giant machine wants to know what everything looks like, inside and out, and anything that can help it understand the real world.
Take advantage of this: upload photos of the building where the business is located, take pictures of the entrance door, the employees, the team during work, the offices from the inside, and anything like that. Google will thank you and give you a better position in the search results.
Summary - Google My Business
Bottom line, Google My Business is a well-oiled lead magnet that you don’t want to miss. The fact that competition is very low and that it’s free – should drive each and every one of you to set up a Google My Business profile and nurture it. My experience shows that this is the organic digital asset that brings the fastest results.
Article Author
Nadav Reifer, 38 years old from Tel Aviv. Founder of myGMB agency for business promotion on Google and generating leads for businesses through “Google My Business”. Builds digital assets in the LeadGen world for various professionals.
