Google My Business Optimization (Google Maps)

How to optimize Google My Business (Google Maps) for Business?

And so in this article we will not touch upon the registration procedure in the Google My Business system, there are already a lot of different materials about it, and with minimal desire you can find everything yourself.

This material is primarily for those who want to improve the performance indicator of a point on a Google map for their business.

Contents:

Main Algorithm (What you need to know and understand)

Company Information

It is very important to remember that any Google search user can change the information about your company if he joins the Google Local Experts program. It is very simple and therefore you need to constantly monitor that the information

а.Your company name

The correct name is one of the most important points to fill in without violating Google rules. Very often people ignore these rules, or try to be more impudent, smarter than others. For example:

– try to add all their products or services to the name:

– use the company address in the name:

use inappropriate words:

What this can lead to:

Well, firstly, it’s extra work, the system, according to some, automatically lowers the rating of companies that use too many words in their name. And with the introduction of the BERT search algorithm, these actions make the situation even worse
Secondly, all unnecessary words can be removed by a moderator or any other local expert, and to become a local expert, you just need to have a phone and register. For example, I removed all the unnecessary words in the names of Foxtrot stores in Kyiv in 5 minutes … wasted effort
Thirdly. Competitors can complain about you to Google support and they will be right. You are breaking the rules, and if such violations are systematic, this can lead to blocking of the account or company card. In fact, no one understands how difficult it is to unblock the card until they go through this procedure themselves. Applications for unblocking are manually checked, and since there are a lot of such applications, you have to wait from 3 months to 1 year! We have had cases of such complaints from competitors, moreover, the reason was the company’s work on search engine promotion.

Category

It is very important to choose the right main business category. Of course, it happens that a company is engaged in many areas. For such cases, it is possible to select up to 10 additional categories. It is important to remember that if your category is not on the list, you can indicate it in the name. For example, now in 2020 there is no category “repair of electronic cigarettes”, but only sales. Therefore, no one will tell you anything if you add this clarification in the name.

Service area

Let’s say this, in 2020 this functionality is not yet fully optimized. We do not recommend setting the territory if you do not work in one city. It often happens that a person is in the suburbs, wants to use the services of a company that is located in the city near which he lives, and the company is not shown to him because of this checkbox.

Working hours

It would seem that you set it up once and forgot about it. But it was not so. The thing is that our activity as a business owner is measured by an algorithm. And every change in the schedule has a positive effect on activity. Therefore, if you do not work on some days, it is better to notify the system and clients about it.

Phone

Specify and change less frequently

Short name (g.page)

A very useful new feature. It allows you to easily share a short link to your business, for example when you need to tell someone the address. It also allows you to ask your customers for reviews after you have created a simple link.

For example, you can thank us for this article here: g.page/mappersgeo/review

Website

It is also important to indicate your company’s website, if you have one, of course. But if you don’t, it’s not a problem. In the menu on the left, you can easily create one as a simple business page. This is a very useful feature for small or young companies.

Products and services, menu

It is very important to fill these two positions. After all, then you will be able to be found by your products or services that your company provides.

Attributes

This is additional detailed information about your company’s capabilities or its features. A wide range of attributes is not available in every business category. Does not significantly affect search results

Briefly about the company. (750 characters)

Крайне важный раздел компании. Вот где нужно проявить смесь фантазии и краткости. Ведь именно этот текст должен максимально полезно рассказать о вас, и где можно вставить краткий текст с конкретными услугами которые предоставляет ваша компания. Это поможет привлечь потенциального клиента.

Question/Answer

A kind of chat between Google Maps users is the Questions and Answers form on your company card. You as a client can ask a question, and any map user or the company owner directly can answer it. Here you can find answers to the most frequently asked questions by clients. It is important to remember that a stranger can also answer a question about your company if, in his opinion, he knows the answer to it.

Photo and video materials

Photos and categories

It is very important to add more and most importantly high-quality photos to the Google My Business system. Photos should primarily be aimed at showing where you are and what you look like. This is the facade of the building, your signs and pointers. Opening hours. It is very important to remember that this service is primarily maps, and not a platform for spamming offers and promotions. We recommend deleting photos with posters of promotions and offers as soon as they end. Do not forget to fill in all additional categories with photos. Personnel, work process, and so on. VERY OFTEN PEOPLE USE VERTICAL PHOTOS, THEY LOOK UGLY ON MAPS AND HAVE A BAD INFLUENCE – TRY TO PUBLISH HORIZONTAL PHOTOS!

360 panoramas

We can say that today – having such photos is a must!

The average price for such photos in Ukraine ranges from 100 to 500 conventional units. Our company, fortunately, has found a way to reduce the cost of this work by at least 2 or even 3 times and achieve the same result.

Video

The latest update added the ability to publish short videos (up to 30 seconds) on the company card. We recommend shooting such videos yourself or ordering fragment editing from us. Having at least 1 video also helps to influence the system and increase the company’s activity and rating.

To begin with, we advise our clients to at least rent the premises where they are located for better orientation, after all, we work on the map. Then you can briefly tell about yourself or your company.

Just remember that Google significantly reduces the quality of video fragments, so you can shoot on a regular phone.

Entries or Posts

The posts are available for 7 days. Remember that this way you also create activity. Therefore, you need to publish at least 4 posts per month, or watch your competitors and do more than them.

Also, if you publish a post about an event, for example a promotion, the post will be active for the duration of the promotion.

You can publish entries from a computer, which we think is more convenient:

And from the phone, through the Google My Business app. Android & iOS – At the moment, the Google My Business app no longer exists, you can edit the company directly through Google Maps or Google Search.

Just typing high-quality text and choosing good images is still quite difficult on the phone.

We recommend especially those companies that employ SMM managers to duplicate all useful information from social networks in the map service.

Reviews

Probably the largest and most necessary section. I want to say right away that a lot of people trust local companies more and a very large percentage of people, well over 80%, trust reviews and read them. The opinions of others are important to people and reviews on Google maps have replaced word of mouth for us.

Another thing is that now a lot of people are engaged in forging and inflating these very reviews. Small Companies think that they are smarter than the largest and most powerful company in the world, and do not understand that it is almost impossible to deceive such a large algorithm.

But it is possible to satisfy!

It’s very simple – ask your customers to leave reviews and respond to them. This is the only way to success.

The most important thing is not to break the rules

There is no need to offer a discount or a cup of coffee for reviews, just do it and ask the person for a review. Can a person really refuse you after good service and attention to yourself?

Work hard and efficiently and get a good assessment of your work. And no competitors with their purchased reviews will do anything to you.

Such reviews are easily banned by the system, to speed up this process it is enough to file a complaint about them in the support center.

By the way, we have a number of technologies and services HERE that will help you get more reviews more easily.

And we can do all of the above for you ourselves, and not at all expensive. The main thing is quality!

We hope this article was useful for you😊

Here is our YouTube channel – for those who are too lazy to read

Our FaceBook page, you can thank us with a recommendation

And we are on the Google map – where you can thank us for the article