For decades, the most important place to tout your business was the back of the Yellow Pages. It’s a simple strategy: you buy prime real estate on the place that everyone uses to look for local businesses.
These days, businesses should shift to a different kind of pages: your Google My Business page. Improving your Google My Business page can be the quickest way to increase foot traffic and profit.
you can do it yourself if you have the time and knowhow or you can hire a professional seo service in New York to do it the right way from the start.
Some quick statistics:
- 48% of buyers start making their decisions on their smartphone
- 40% of adults in the US use mobile voice search at least once a day (including the 55-64 year-old demographic)
- 40% of all mobile searches are for a local business
- Nearly 10% of mobile searches for local businesses result in a purchase
So instead of walking over to a thick book to find a business that solves a problem, people have started asking their mobile devices.
Who decides which businesses are recommended? Google.
How do you make Google recommend your business? By improving your Google My Business page.
Most important factors for your Google My Business page
Customers look at your Google My Business page to make buying decisions, to decide whether or not to visit your store and if they can trust you.
In this decision-making process, it is important that you provide them with all the basic information this page has. Make sure your business hours, contact information, and pictures are provided, up-to-date, relevant, and appealing.
When all the information is there, customers start looking for
three key factors on the page:
- Average minimum star rating – users can leave star ratings (one to five stars) based on their experience with your business. Over the years, buyers considering a three-star rating as sufficient has declined from 45% to 39%, while the percentage of people who required at least a four-star rating has grown from 20% to 39%.
- Quantity of reviews – the amount of reviews on your Google My Business Page is an important buying decision for 46% of visitors.
- Responding to reviews – businesses that respond to reviews are viewed as more trustworthy by 30% of visitors.
How to improve the key factors on your Google My Business page
To improve your Google My Business page, reviews are key. You can’t make people write (positive) reviews, but you can encourage customers to leave a review by:
- Incorporating a moment in your customer’s journey where you ask for a review. A message on the receipt or a business card with a link to your Google My Business page are two simple ways to remind people to leave a review.
- Following up on reviews. Responding to reviews is a simple way to build trust and keep your Google My Business page active.
Other ways to improve your Google My Business page include:
- Making sure your business description describes your products or services
- Adding photos to give customers more information
- Using the product catalog (for small local businesses) to help display your products
- Creating regular posts that give updates about your business and keep the Google My Business page active.
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