1. Introduction

After claiming and filling out your Google My Business (GMB) profile, it's essential to maximise its potential by utilising the relevant additional features and optimising your profile effectively. 
 

2. The significance of enhancing your profile 

In numerous cases, Google My Business is effectively taking the place of users visiting your website homepage. Your customers can easily access all the information they require about your business—and even make a purchase—directly from the search results without needing to visit your site. Additionally, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous enterprises utilized Google My Business to ensure their customers remained informed. 

It is crucial now more than ever to make sure your profile is filled out correctly to truly represent your business, as this could be the primary online interaction users have with you. It is crucial to optimise and utilise the additional features available to ensure a robust user experience for visitors, maximising their chances of becoming new customers. 

Another reason to enhance your profile is that keeping an active listing and utilising additional GMB features can significantly engage your audience and play a crucial role in boosting your visibility in local search results. 

Important factors for ranking are: 
- Distance from the user's current location or the location being searched. 
- The significance and recognition of a location, venue, or brand. 
- The importance of a listing in relation to the search term. 
- The extent of your listing's detail, including the information provided, level of engagement, and features utilised. 
- Actively managing your profile and utilising relevant features like categories, photos, descriptions, posts, services, and buttons can significantly enhance your chances of ranking in local searches. Another important aspect is feedback. Possessing well-rated and top-notch reviews that you engage with is frequently viewed as a crucial element in determining how Google ranks local listings. 
 

3. Utilise extra functionalities

 In addition to managing your complimentary business listing, Google My Business provides a range of extra features designed to enhance your business's visibility in local search results and foster engagement with your customers. Leveraging these extra features can significantly enhance user experience and engagement while also contributing to better search rankings. 

Before introducing any new features, ensure they are pertinent to your needs, that you comprehend their usage, and that you have taken into account the time required for their upkeep. Additionally, please note that the ongoing COVID-19 situation is affecting the time it takes for Google to update listings and manage their help center. As a result, some support options may be temporarily unavailable or experience delays. 

Updates 
GMB enables enterprises to enhance their customer engagement by incorporating ‘posts’ into their business profile. Posts serve as an effective platform to highlight essential conversion messaging to your audience. 
As per Google, the available types of posts at present are:
Stay updated: Utilise these posts to communicate the latest news or updates regarding your business.
Events: These posts serve as a great way to showcase a business event. 
Promotions: This is the perfect space to showcase any sales, promotions, or special offers that your business is currently offering. 
Products: While not technically classified as ‘posts,’ these enable you to showcase products that will be displayed in your ‘products’ section. 
Hours update: When you change your business hours, customers will receive a notification on your profile indicating that the hours have been updated. Additionally, Google will generate a post to confirm this update, which you have the option to edit. (These can also be deleted). 
Plus, a COVID-19 update post type, which you can add to notify customers of any changes due to coronavirus. 

See Google My Business support for more information on post types and COVID-19 updates. 

You add posts via your GMB dashboard. In most post types, you can include a photo/video, a description, and - importantly - a call to action button.

Posts can be an excellent way to engage with your customers and add real value, providing additional information and calls to action in a space where customers are actively looking for it. Creating regular posts also keeps your profile active, which is beneficial for users and could potentially help your rankings. 

Aim to post weekly and make use of all of the post types relevant to you. Ensure post descriptions are engaging and to the point (include the main point at the start of the post) and include a call to action in each one.

However, as with any regular marketing messaging (such as email and social media), time and effort are required to keep it up. It is also important to have something to say to your users to ensure your posts are engaging. Plan your posts in advance so you have a bank of well-considered content that adds genuine value to your users that you can use for the upcoming month.

Google My Business messaging 
GMB messaging gives you the option of adding a ‘message’ button to your business profile. 

According to Google, “Once you turn on messaging, customers will find a "Message" button on your Business Profile and be able to message you at any time.” 

GMB messaging gives an additional way for users to contact you, which can be particularly useful when customers are not clicking through to your site or if potential customers typically get in touch before buying/visiting. You can also share photos of any size via messaging. 

However, do be aware that these messages appear in your Google My Business app, so you need to regularly check and respond via the app. You will also need to respond to each message within 24 hours to keep your messaging button active (Google can remove the message button from your profile if you take longer than a day to respond). 

For more information on messaging, see Google My Business support. 

Booking button 
With coronavirus, more businesses are moving to online systems to manage customer bookings. Whether you are just starting to take appointments and bookings online or you already do, the GMB booking button could be beneficial for you, as it can allow customers to make a booking straight from your business profile. 

This can be hugely valuable for winning new business as it provides a fast and simple user experience for your customers and removes barriers to conversion. However, the catch is that to use this feature, you have to be managing your online bookings through one of Google’s supported scheduling partners. 

Showcasing your products 
Businesses can now showcase their products and services directly within their GMB profile, using the ‘Products’ editor within the GMB dashboard. 

This allows businesses to add specific products or services to their profile, along with a photo, description, price, and an all-important call to action. These calls to action can either link directly to your online shop or contain a link for more information. 

Showcasing products can be hugely beneficial for many businesses, allowing you to show potential customers exactly what you offer within your profile itself, prompting decision-making and even conversion directly from the search results. 

Adding products is also an excellent way to increase the amount of information within your profile to help users and Google understand what you do.

To find out more about adding products, see Google’s support section. 

Sector-specific features 
Google My Business also offers some category-specific features for businesses in specific sectors, such as hotels and restaurants. These are geared towards that sector and can be of real value to businesses and users in providing additional relevant information. 

For example, for hotels, GMB allows you to add or edit your hotel’s amenities, class ratings, showcase hotel highlights, link to bookings, and add your specific COVID-19 responder policy. (See the GMB help center for more information.) 

‘Create an ad’ functionality 
Within your Google My Business dashboard, you will also see links to ‘create an ad.’ This functionality from Google can help you to set up ads within minutes that appear within Google search and Google Maps, showing your business address, phone number, and website link if you have one. You then pay whenever a user clicks on the ad to come to your website or calls your business.

However, do think carefully before launching an ad. These still cost money, and if you don’t understand the system or what you want to get out of it, you could overspend or get little in return. Before embarking on any advertising campaign, do your reading and make sure that you fully understand the platform, have a set budget, have made a plan, and know what you want to achieve. 

For more information on Pay Per Click advertising, see the DigitalBoost guide on Paid Advertising. 

Find out more about Google’s ads here. 
Link with your Google Ads account -
If you have a Google My Business profile and you are running, or going to run, Google Ads pay-per-click (PPC) ads, you can link your account to unlock ‘location extensions’ within your PPC ads. 

These allow you to show your location information within your ads, such as your address and phone number, and they can also have a clickable call button on mobile devices. This can help potential customers find you and contact you earlier.

For more information on this, see Google Ads support. 

As mentioned previously. Before embarking on any advertising campaign, it is essential that you set a budget, make a plan, and understand the platform. For more information on Pay Per Click advertising, see the DigitalBoost guide on Paid Advertising. 
 

4. Continually improve your profile 

Review customer insights 
Google My Business provides a free ‘Insights’ tool that can be accessed via your dashboard and through the Google My Business app. These insights give you information about how people interacted with and found your profile, including:

The number of times your profile has been viewed 
How users found your profile and the search terms they used (i.e., did they search directly for your business or using a category keyword such as “pizza restaurant”) 
What actions did they take on your profile (did they click on your site, call, etc.)? 
These insights can be really useful in helping you assess the effectiveness of your listing. For example, if many users found you by searching for your business type, but no one took action, this could flag that your profile does not stand out against competitors and needs to be updated or improved (e.g., with a better description, new photos, posts, etc.). However, on the other hand, if you have many users taking action from your profile, you can take the learning from what is working well here (potentially a strong promotion or good reviews) and work this into other aspects of your marketing.

The information in Insights can also help you understand your customers better. 
-What do they want and need? 
-What are they searching for? 
- How are they interacting with your profile? 
- Are they calling or messaging or heading to your site? 
All of these insights are valuable and should be reviewed regularly.

For more information on Insights, see Google’s support article. 
Focus on reviews 
Reviews are an integral part of your GMB profile. They are key to persuading customers to do business with you over a competitor, and they also impact your local search rankings. Having positive reviews can make all the difference to the success of your GMB profile. 

If you are keen to get more reviews, one of the best ways to prompt more is to respond to any reviews that you get. This shows customers you engage with them and makes customers more likely to engage with you.

Alternatively, you can try asking your customers for reviews. (You are permitted to ask for reviews if you do so in an honest way, without spamming, and by adhering to Google’s guidelines. If you don’t stick to the guidelines, your reviews could be removed. 

You could approach existing customers individually (either in person or via a channel such as email or messenger) and ask if they would like to leave you a review. Note that you can create a shortcut link directly to your reviews section to make this process easier for them - Google explains how here. 

Do keep in mind that Google is a public channel, and any reviews will be visible to everyone who views your profile. If you don’t normally ask for feedback or are not confident in what the reviews will flag, consider a more private channel like a quick Survey Monkey to gain feedback before you begin.

Remember, you must never pay for or incentivize reviews—this is forbidden by Google and is a violation of their guidelines.

Create a questions and Answers ‘FAQ.’ 
In the previous guide, we mentioned how important it is to actively monitor and answer any questions that users ask within your profile. 

Taking this a step further, you could also use the Q&A functionality to add some ‘frequently asked questions’ to your profile. If your customers often ask the same questions before converting, consider adding these questions to your GMB profile, providing succinct and useful answers. Remember that anyone can answer these questions, so keep an eye on your profile and check any user-generated answers for accuracy.

Deal with fake reviews 
If you receive a review that you know to be fake, this can be very frustrating and can at times be difficult to deal with. 

The first step is to flag the review as inappropriate from within your dashboard. Google will then check whether the review adheres to their policy guidelines. Be patient, as it can take time for Google to investigate. However, be aware that Google cannot check whether every review is genuine or fake, and they may not remove the review if it does not violate any of their guidelines. In this case, you will need to respond accordingly to the review - being courteous and non-confrontational.

If you need additional help, you can also contact Google Business Support, post on the Google My Business Forum, or check out their Twitter account. 

Remember that whether you have set up a Google My Business profile or not, people can leave reviews on your business on Google, so it’s best to be actively maintaining your profile to manage this.

Removing listings for closed businesses 
If your business or premises has moved or has closed for good, you can remove the listing or mark it as ‘permanently closed’ from within your Google My Business dashboard. 

However, please note - just as your profile may have been created by Google without your input - once you close or cease to own the listing, that doesn’t mean the listing will disappear. 

For permanently closed businesses, the listing will still appear online when searched for, but ‘permanently closed’ will be flagged in red. Likewise, if you select to ‘remove’ your listing, this removes the listing from your dashboard and removes ownership rights, but it will not delete the listing from Google search results. 

However, if your business has permanently closed or you no longer want ownership rights of the listing, you can carry out both of these actions from within the ‘info’ tab of your Google My Business dashboard. 

(Note, once you select to ‘remove’ a location or listing, this can’t be undone - you would need to verify the location again if you want to manage it).

Keep information up to date 
Alongside monitoring your GMB profile for any user activity (such as questions, reviews, and messages), it is important that you update any information that is out of date. Keep your address, phone number, business description, service list, photos, opening hours, etc., accurate and reflective of current business practice.

Also, as your GMB profile matures and you gain more insight, look to improve any elements of your profile (such as your description, photos, post messaging, and product shots) by adding more compelling or engaging information.

Make sure that the information you enter and the features you use are centered around your users to ensure the experience they have with your profile is the best it can be.