Google My Business

‘Google My Business’ is a really important service for you to engage with if you have a physical location that you sell from.  If you have a shop, cafe, walk-in service etc then Google uses your ‘my business’ listing to show your company on its map results, or to suggest local businesses to people based on where they are when they are searching.  IF you don’t already have a ‘my business’ listing, then Google may have created one for you automatically.  It will have collated information from your Facebook page, Happy Cow reviews and Google reviews to present a stand-out result for someone searching for your business.  Remember from our previous example how it can be hard to get to the top of Google’s results because Trip Adviser etc all have the top spots?  Well this is another great way to leapfrog them.

You might not even be aware that Google has created this listing for you – and if it has automatically made one then there’s a link you can use to prove that you are the business owner so that you can take over the listing and edit the details yourself, such as adding your own photos and correct any old information.  You can also add your website link to the listing if you have one, so it really is the one place on Google you can get free advertising with little effort.

If you are launching a new business, or if an automatic listing hasn’t been created for you, then you can also set one up yourself.  Simply search for ‘Google My Business Account’ and follow the instructions to validate your business listing, which may include Google sending a postcard out to your address with a unique code to verify your physical location.  Again, it’s free, and if you have not got a Google My Business listing yet then stop reading this for a minute and go grab one!