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Google Business Verification
We travel all across Alberta with our work, visiting unique small town businesses as well as some large operations. What is surprising is that a lot of business owners haven’t tapped into Google Business, they either haven’t heard about it which is rare or they just had no idea how to set it up. Sometimes we’ve helped them within minutes just by getting them to claim their business online with a push of a button. Most businesses verify ownership via phone, SMS, or requesting and receiving a postcard to your address from Google. It can be very easy and quick but also can take some time, once you’ve claimed the business they’ll send out a postcard in the mail with your verification number. It is supposed to be there in 2 weeks but we have seen it take longer, once you have the code you enter it and start editing your business info, add products, services and much more.
Google Business is often the clients first impression, before they get on a website or social media platform they’ll see all they need to know about your business here, then make the decision “to click or not to click”. So take the time as soon as possible to get your business profile connected and up to date to help drive traffic to your store/site/product.
The tools in Google Business are vast and numerous, we won’t go into heavy detail with all of them but we do want to touch on some of the bigger ticket items. Let’s start with correct information on the info tab.
Location, photos, logo, hours, services, products, phone number make sure this is all filled in correctly. It can take a few days to change once you’ve saved your work, you should notice a little button that says “under review”. We have seen some really great set-ups on Google Business, so make sure to check out your competitors and peers in the field to give yourself a comparison and goal of how you want yours to look.
Good photos of the storefront if you have are a must, they need to be clean and welcoming. Get the lighting right, on a beautiful day, maybe some smiling traffic. Pictures are worth a 1000 words, so what do your pictures say about your business?
Once you have set all the critical information you then can look at expanding your services/ products. By being very thorough with this you really help Google to pin down what you're offering. This could be one of the more time consuming parts depending on your business. Keeping digital documents really helps here as you won’t need to go hunt down all the info. If you do not have any then we recommend that you start making these, as they’re extremely handy when managing any business, making it much easier to retrieve and use info from your company for a plethora of tasks.
So we’ve loaded up the services/products. Lets now do some posts for your business, with all the pictures you just went through you should have a few now to use for posting. Posting can be done through various categories
Covid-19 update…ugh I know we're all very sick of Covid-19 but this does inform customers that you care about their well being and you're doing all you can to protect them well dealing with your business.
Offers…is your business offering specials? If so, what are they and how can they get in on the deal? They’ll find all they need to know right here.
What's New…Your business is growing! Taking on new products or contracts, let your clients know here. Tell them all the latest happenings within your business.
Event…do you have a large event you're running or participating in, trying to draw some attention to it. This is the place to get your event noticed.
Product…this we have already set-up but as you grow and want to add more it can be done from here too.
So there is alot one can post on Google and it’s all for free, no charges! Now if you want to run a campaign you sure can and you can also do it through your Google Business account. Campaigns cost money and will definitely get you to the front of the line, definitely worth pursuing if your budget allows. For this article we’re talking about the free side of Google Business. The official Google Business FAQ sheet is linked here for further information. https://www.google.com/intl/en_ca/business/faq/
So we’ve set-up your Google Business account and profile, it is looking good and getting some attention now. So now what? Well let's take a look at upkeep and maintaining your Google Business. Just below are a couple graphs that are found in Google Business Insights, these graphs help measure your performance and help to make marketing decisions and direction. Once you have some tracking data you can use this to focus your energies into critical areas.
Let's say you spend $20.00 dollars on a Facebook post, Facebook has their own analytics that you can follow but comparing the results with Google business will allow you to look a little deeper into the effectiveness of the campaign, and also add to the validity of Facebook's stats. If that $20 makes the phone ring a 100 extra times in that period then you can feel more confident to start spending a little more.
What are peer businesses doing? You can pull up some comparison charts to help you make the best marketing decisions. Time is of the utmost value, you don't want to waste your energy no something that won't give a good return on investment (ROI). Study what is working, what others are doing to help stay in line with clients demands and needs. By making well thought out strategic investments you will make the most of your time.
The Google Business platform is free to use, as you can see there's a lot that you can do through the business app to help improve your businesses online presence helping it get noticed. If you're a business owner looking for a cheap way to help drive business then this is definitely top of the list. If you're looking for help with getting this started then contact us today, we give free quotes and would love to hear about your business. We've helped many businesses grow, all well staying within a budget. We also have many other services we offer too, so make sure to subscribe to stay up to date.