Many business owners don’t know that they have a special business listing on Google, nor that they can claim this listing so they become the owner of it. Claiming a listing allows you to see how many times your listing has been showed in both the search results as well as on Google Maps, reply to reviews and more…
Search for your business name and the country (just to make sure you get for example the correct “Paradise Beach Bar” in the right country) on Google and see at the right hand side of the screen. If you see something similar to the screenshot below, you have a listing for your business on what is called “Google My Business“:
Google even tells you what needs to be done to improve the quality of this business listing, like in this case:
- Add phone number
- Add business hours
- Add website
The “Add website” is important in particular, because if your business is not listed on the front page of Google when people search for your business name, but your Google My Business listing IS shown, how can people find you and how do you expect to grow your business?
For a local business, that is mainly relying on local clientele, the phone number and business hours are very important. You want to receive more calls from prospects looking for your business, and you don’t want them to visit your location in vain, because it’s closed without them (and Google) knowing it.
To add these details, click on the blue links in the business listing and follow the instructions that Google provides.
We’re constantly doing this for clients, when we shoot and publish their virtual tours. We’ve also done this for Balafon Resort, as you can see below:
Although this is in Dutch, I guess you see the difference: before the listing neither have the website listed, nor the phone number. We added both, which surely increased traffic to Balafon’s website and most likely also the number of phone calls they receive.
In a future post, I’ll cover the claiming process for a Google My Business listing and also the creation of a local listing in case your listing doesn’t exist. Stay tuned…
Does your Google My Business listing need fixes / additions or isn’t your business listed at all? Don’t hesitate to contact us for help!
