If you're the owner of a small business that has a physical location, optimizing your Google Business Profile (GBP) is a must. Getting more organic visits can drive increased customer awareness, more foot traffic to your store or office, and ultimately, higher sales. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to generate more organic visits to your Google Business Profile.
A Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly known as Google My Business, is a free tool by Google that allows businesses to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. It usually appears on the right hand side of search results.
The information in your GBP profile is also what shows up in the Local Pack or Map Pack, which lists the top 3-4 results in a local search.
Without a Google Business Profile, a business has a lower chance of showing up in Maps and Search. A Google Business Profile also lends legitimacy and credibility to your business.
Customers are 2.7x more likely to consider a business reputable if they find a complete Business Profile on Google Search and Maps - Google1
If you don’t already have a GBP, it’s quick and easy to create one.
But first, confirm that you meet GBP’s eligibility requirements:
Here is more information on GBP requirements.
If you meet all of the criteria above, you can create a free GBP online here.
To setup your GBP, you’ll be asked a number of questions. You should answer the minimum set of questions to complete your profile. Once completed, Google must verify your profile. Verification can take up to five business days, and showing up in search results can take up to several weeks. If you specified a physical address, Google will mail you a postcard that looks something like this:
To grow your Google Business Profile audience, you’ll want to optimize for these fields which are known ranking factors:
Here are the GBP fields that impact ranking and therefore matter most:
You cannot change your actual business name, and Google advises not to stuff keywords into this field that are not already in your business name. However, I’ve seen plenty of profiles that show business names with additional descriptive text. You may be able to get away with adding in 1-2 words to the field to help with ranking. For example, a business who offers a summer camp should have the word “camp” in there.
You can choose up to 10 categories for your business. The primary category, of which you can select one, is by far the most important. You can choose up to nine secondary categories; choose as many as you like, but make sure the categories are relevant to your business and do not cause any category confusion.
Google has over 4,000 categories you can choose from, and this keeps changing every year.
If your business has one location, then entering your home page into the Website field is fine.
If you have multiple locations, you’ll want to create a Business Group, where you’ll be prompted to add any additional locations and enter the associated NAP and URL info. Here’s where you would enter the specific location page URL for each location.
Review ratings matter for obvious reasons. But quantity of reviews is also important for improving prominence. More reviews and positive ratings can help you appear in more local searches that are further from your business location. This study indicates that having more than 10 reviews has high impact, with diminishing returns after that.
Additionally, recency of reviews impacts rankings. Therefore, periodically getting new reviews can boost or maintain visibility in search and maps.
Best practices for getting reviews:
Whether you receive positive and negative reviews, you should always respond promptly to those reviews. Google will notify you via email of any reviews you receive on your GBP.
Services became a ranking factor2 in local search in 2022. Not all categories have pre-defined services that you can add, but Google continues to add more. It’s best to check regularly for new pre-defined services and update your profile accordingly.
Custom services also impact ranking, but to a lesser extent.
“Openness” is another new ranking factor as of last year3. When your business is open, you are more likely to rank highly. We don't recommend you game the system by keeping 24/7 hours, but rather maintain accurate hours through the season and summer when you can be responsive to inquiries.
While these fields may not be ranking factors, they are important for helping people locate your business, understand your business and engage with you.
If you have the staff, resources and time to fill out all information, keep it updated and active, and maintain for accuracy, then go ahead and do so. But for most small businesses, we have to prioritize where our efforts go. Here are the fields that are least important. They don’t impact ranking, and they appear below the fold where engagement would be more limited.
Regularly check the performance of your GBP profile through Performance, formerly known as Insights, which shows you data on how customers found your profile, the keywords they searched, and how they interacted with your profile. Perhaps some keywords or categories drive higher quality users or users more likely to purchase. If so, consider tweaking your profile to test those hypotheses.
Google Business Profile is a free, easy and effective tool for local marketing. All local businesses should have a GBP. Pay attention to the most important elements, like Name, Categories, Website, and Reviews so that you have the best chance of showing up in local searches. Regularly track and monitor your GPB Performance and what competitors are doing in their GBPs, and continually re-evaluate what's working and what needs adjusting.
1 "Complete your Business Profile on Google", Google Business Profile Help, Pulled July 7, 2024
2 E. Rule, "How Google Business Profile pre-defined services can impact local SEO", Search Engine Land, May 25, 2023
3 K. Hines, "Google Confirms ‘Openness’ As Local Search Ranking Factor, Search Engine Land, December 15, 2023
4 J. Hawkins, "Does Adding Photos in Google My Business Increase Ranking? [Case Study]", Sterling Sky, October 4, 2021
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