What is Google Business Profile?
Google Business Profile is more than just a simple business directory listing. It’s about making it easier to be discovered online by people looking for businesses like yours.
You can have a Google Business Profile for online businesses as well as physical shops. It’s good for small businesses servicing their local community as well as larger ones with multiple locations. There’s something for everyone.
When used properly, this free-to-use tool can have a huge impact on your business’s online visibility and how your customer’s find you. So keep reading for an explanation about all the different sections and what information you should include, so you can maximise your Google potential.
Why is Google Business Profile important for your online visibility?
Listing your business details in online directories is an important part of Off-Page Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The thing is, lots of them come with a catch, such as restricting the information you can include or charging fees for premium listings.
Google Business Profile gives it all to you for free and comes with benefits like:
- Increasing your visibility and ranking on Google Search and Maps,
- Attracting more customers to your business and driving traffic to your website,
- Building trust and credibility with potential customers,
- Managing your online reputation.
These are all important for your business’s success. Investing your time to set up and regularly manage your profile is the best way to see all those benefits for your business.
What business information does Google Business Profile include?
From your business name to your opening hours, every detail added to your profile helps to boost your visibility and build your reputation online.
Here’s a breakdown of the essential information you should include and how you can make your business stand out.
About
Business Name: Make sure you use the same name across all your online profiles. This consistency helps search engines connect your various profiles with confidence that it’s the same business. It’s also reassuring to customers so they know they’re looking at the business they wanted.
Category: Google provides a huge range of categories and adds new ones all the time. You can choose more than one to highlight your niche and industry, but don’t over-do it. Too many can be confusing and dilute your relevance in each category, which can negatively impact your ranking.
Description: You’ve got 750 characters to show off what makes your business awesome. Share what problems you solve, how you make life easier for your customers, and why they’ll love you. Using your keywords can help to optimise your profile and help your business rank higher in Google Search.
Contact Information
This is where you include different ways you want your customers to contact you.
Phone: Use your primary phone number first. Others can be added if needed.
Website: Make sure the URL is correct and links directly to your main business website.
Social Profiles: Connecting your other social media profiles can enhance your business’s online visibility and credibility.
Location & Service Areas
Business Location: If you have a physical location, you’ll be able to provide your address so customers know where they can visit you. You can still have a Google Business Profile without an address being visible.
Service Area: If you’re service-based, you can opt to have your address hidden and list the geographic area where you serve your customers. For physical businesses, you can specify your delivery areas (if appropriate) and how far your business operates.
For example, if you have a massage business, you can list the address for your physical shop where your customers can come for a massage or to buy your wellness products. You can also set the areas where you’re willing to deliver your wellness products and the areas you’ll travel to as a mobile masseuse.
Including various locations can help with your local SEO. Google Maps uses this information to display your business on maps, helping customers find your location easily as well as matching your business and offerings with search requests looking in a specific location.
For example, if you’ve included Rockingham in your service area, Google will be able to display your business to someone searching for a mobile masseuse in Rockingham, with your listing being shown in the Google Map Local Pack.
Opening Hours
No matter what kind of business you’re listing, providing complete and accurate details is all part of a positive customer experience. By including your hours of business, you’re helping your customers plan their visit, or call you at a time you will answer. This is especially important if you have opening times outside the standard 9-5pm business hours, such as opening on certain days or only in the morning. No one wants to arrive at a shop just to find it’s shut on the one day you made the effort to travel there.
You can also add in Special opening hours such as public holidays, or planned holidays when you won’t be answering work-related calls.
What are the extra features in the Google Business Profile?
These extra features are why Google Business Profile is more than just an online business listing. All still free to use, they help you to increase your customer interactions and build a stronger online presence.
Reviews
Google reviews are an unbiased platform where customers can leave positive and negative feedback about their interactions with your business. They’re often trusted by potential customers and can significantly impact your business’s reputation and ranking. Replying to both positive and negative reviews shows how much you value your customers’ feedback and gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your professionalism and responsiveness. You can build trust, attract new customers, and identify areas for improvement.
Photos
By including photos, you can make your Google Business Profile more engaging and informative. Visuals can help you stand out from competitors and attract more potential customers. Showcase your products, services, and team to build trust and credibility.
Some potential photos you could include:
Logos: Helps customers identify your business quickly and easily.
Exterior photos: A clear picture of the front of your shop, including any signage.
Interior photos: Show customers what they can expect when they step inside, including popular areas and “hidden” gems.
Product photos: Showcase your products in action with satisfied customers
Photos at work: Demonstrate your services with before/after shots.
Team photos: Pictures of employees gives a personal touch to a business and can be a friendly face to see in a new venue.
You can use candid shots as well as professional images. Just make sure the file name and alt text is descriptive and contains appropriate keywords to help with SEO.
E.g. ❌ image_485fgh.jpg
✔️ katie-dimario-seo-copywriter.jpg
Add Products
You may already have your products listed on your website, but listing them on your Google Business Profile can increase their visibility even further. Someone may be searching for a product that matches one of yours without knowing about your business, making your business more discoverable. Having relevant info within your Google Business Profile means customers can quickly access the information without having to navigate through your website to find it.
You can also link the products directly to the relevant page on your website to make purchasing even easier, improving the user experience.
Edit Services
If your business is service-based, this is your section. Don’t be tempted to add your services in the product section as an attempt to increase visibility. Both sections are categorised in different ways so listing in both could confuse the algorithms and actually decrease your visibility.
Start by choosing your primary business category from their list and add your specific services that fit within that category. You can even add your own custom service so get your relevant keywords in if you can.
Bookings
Your website isn’t always the best way for your customers to contact you.
Many businesses use third party booking platforms that are separate to their website for customers to make appointments that go directly into their business calendar.
Your website link should be in the Contact information, so Google’s provided another section where you can include the link to your booking platform. This improves the user experience as your customers don’t have to search for the link within your website to make a booking.
Add Update
This section is a bit like a social media feed, where you can share updates, promotions, and news directly with your customers, just like any other social media platform. Think of it as your business’s mini-blog within your Google Business Profile.
You don’t need to create brand new content just for your Google Business Profile. You can share the same content you’re already producing for Instagram or Facebook, it just may need some editing to keep the description under 1500 characters (Instagram allows 2200 characters in their post captions.) It’s a great place to include the keywords that are important to your business, whether that’s brand focused or more niched to a particular product.
Add Update: Share general updates about your business, such as new products, changes to opening hours or sharing a blog post from your website. You can use photos, branded graphics or videos to capture attention and increase engagement.
Add Offer: Used to promote special offers, discounts, or promotions. You need to include a title, start and end dates, a description, and a call to action, which is usually a link to a relevant page on your website or booking platform.
Add Event: Let people know about special events you’re running or a part of, such as workshops or local markets. It also needs a title, start and end dates, a time, and an optional description. Make sure you include a call to action link, which could be to buy tickets or to the local market organisers’ website.
By posting regularly, you can build your brand, drive traffic to your website and create a stronger connection with your customers and local community.
How do you know if your Google Business Profile is making a difference?
So you’ve added in all your information, included plenty of photos and you’re posting lots of updates. How do you know if it’s working? Well, Google has that covered too.
Performance
As well as receiving regular emails from Google, you can check out how well your profile is performing from the interactions your customers are having with your listing.
Views: The number of times your profile has been viewed on Google Search and Maps and a breakdown of which platforms and devices are being used.
Search terms: What words were used that showed your profile in the search results. These can be really useful for your keyword research to help with your SEO.
Interaction: What customers are doing in your profile, including phone calls and how many click on to your website.
In the example below from one of my clients, you can see a dip in interactions during August and September when we didn’t post anything. Then things pick up again in October when we started to post regularly again.
Ready for the benefits of your own Google Business Profile?
Hopefully this information has given you the confidence to create your own Google Business Profile. But remember, it’s just the first step. Having a fully optimised and well maintained profile should be part of a long-term strategy so you continue improving your local SEO, attracting new customers, and building your online reputation well into the future.
If you’d rather focus on your business while someone else manages these details, let me handle it for you. With my Google Business Profile Management package, you can sit back and enjoy the benefits of a Google Business Profile while watching your business grow online.
Start your Google Business Profile today and let more customers find you faster tomorrow.