Optimising Google Search for Local Businesses
- Gary Carter
- Oct 5, 2022
- 3 min read
I was looking at some Google statistics recently that reinforced the point that for businesses that rely on selling to their local market, there are some critical steps you can take to maximise the chances of getting found by your target market.
Everyone knows that Google is the world's most popular search engine - they have 92% of online search market share! This reinforces the importance of optimising our visibility on Google in the interest of bringing prospects onto our websites.
Not everyone knows that every business can create a FREE Google Business Profile that helps boost their search rankings. It's quite a critical step for businesses that rely on clients from their local area as the Google Business Profile will get you more visible in local searches and on searches that people do with Google maps.
There are some really intriguing stats around this:-
Google suggest that businesses with an up-to-date Google Business Profile enjoy a 61% increase in incoming calls compared with those that don't have one
They say 56% of all businesses do not have a Google Business Profile or they have one that's not up-to-date with correct contact details
It's thought that 64% of consumers check Google Business Profiles to research potential suppliers
An estimated 5% of all views via up-to-date Google Business Profiles result in a conversion. That may not sound much but the average business is found 1,009 times a month in searches, those additional conversions could add up
Whilst many Google Business Profiles are set up by the business owner, there are also large numbers that have been created automatically based on a business being listed in one of the many online directories. The problem with this is that the details, if you've not put them in yourself, may not be correct or could be outdated. That's known to cause consumers that may try to make contact with those incorrect details to mistrust a brand so having an out-of-date Business Profile is likely to do more harm than good.
The good news is it's quick and easy to check your own Google Business Profile
There are a few ways to do this, the easiest being to log-on to your Google account and from the Google apps menu, select “Business Profile”. From there, you can easily check ALL the details for your business are up-to-date if your business is linked to your profile.
If you don't have “Business Profile” as a selectable option, it's quick and easy to set one up. You can click on https://business.google.com/create to guide you through the process, including to either create a profile for your company or take ownership of one that already exists, after which, you can make sure all the details are correct for it.
If you do have "Business Profile" as an option in your Google account, but find your business isn't linked to your profile, the first thing to do is check if the business already has an existing profile on Google.
To do this, simply search for your business in Google. If you get a profile box similar to the one shown in the screenshot below, highlighted in red, then the business does have a profile already. From here, you'll be able to request taking ownership of it so you can furnish it with all the correct details and keep it up to date. To do that, there will be a link titled "Own this business?" (not shown in the screenshot below) which you can click to go through a guided process of claiming ownership of your Business Profile.
It's quick and easy to check the above points and as you'll see from the stats you saw earlier, the benefits are clear for businesses targeting customers locally. Five minutes spent doing this could:-
Increase the number of prospects finding you
Get more visible in local searches
Enable you to respond to customer reviews
Show up on searches done with Google maps
Get insights on how many people are interacting with your business profile
Improve your local SEO
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