The Ultimate Guide to set-up Google My Business Listing 2024

Want to get started with the Local SEO strategy for your Business? Then, Google My Business (GMB) is surely a place to get your first focus on! Moreover, there are many benefits of listing on Google My Business such as showing up on Google Maps, having a presence on organic ranking, local finder, and on Google’s local pack. Nowadays, consumers search instantly on “Google Maps” for what they need. Say, for instance, if you are new to a place when you search on Google maps for things like restaurants, repair shops, malls, gas stations, and even the local business then you can find it out on Google Maps with their exact location. If your business is not yet on Google Maps, then you got to add it as a location first. This is how Google’s Local Pack looks like:

So, if you want to catch the viewer’s attention, the first step is to create, then claim and Verify your business. A great thing about GMB is that it’s free and allows you to include information about your company or business. Facilitates to add information like:

• Business Name and Address
• Adding Website link
• Business Hours
• Special Hours
• Phone Number
• Types of Payments Accepted

Let’s check How to Claim and Verify Google My Business To verify your GMB listing, you can follow the below-given steps:

• Phone Verification – You can verify your business listing using the phone verification method.
• Verifying Through Postcard – Receive the Google verification code at your business address which could take up to 14 days or more.
• Instant Verification – If you have configured your Google Search Console account for your website then you can instantly verify your business GMB listing.
• Email Verification – Directly get the verification code via your registered email address on your GMB account.
• Note that: Email option is available for the selected business. So if you don’t find it, use another verification method.
• Bulk Verification options – If you have got 10+ locations of your same business then you can bulk verify your business listing.

Here’s where you can place your GMB verification code

Once you finish with verifying your Google My Business listing. The next step  you should make is to: Select Google My Business “Dashboard” Click the section you would like to fill and update such as Info, Labels, Posts, Messaging, Photos, and Reviews. You can write 750 characters of your business description in the info section (Whereas the knowledge panel shows only 250 characters)

Now, that’s a kind of optimization to describe your business to better understand your products/services to your customers. Furthermore, you can look up to more options and optimize them properly in your GMB listing. Let’s take a look at how to optimize Google My Business listing! Google My Business Posts Want to know what’s new with the “Posts” in Google My Business? Well long story short, while creating a post in the GMB, you have up to 1500 characters limit to show your users more useful content and engage them!

A great thing about GMB posts is that it allows you to represent your post with:

• Images/Videos (Allows to add up to 10 images or videos)
• GIF or 30 – sec Video (Max upload size is 100 MB)
• Events – To promote any events that your business may be passionate about.
• Offers – To promote sales, coupons, discounts or offers that your business currently offers.
• Products Post – You can add your business products or inventory manually depending on your business category. There are a lot more CTA (Call to Action) buttons to add such as:
  • Book
  • Order Online
  • Buy
  • Learn More
  • Sign Up
  • Get Offer
  • Call Now
  • Add a Button (Optional)

Have a Look at the below image!

Booking Button for Businesses on Google  From fitness, reserve a restaurant table, or saving your spot for a salon appointment, the booking button helps you in all such cases directly from google! So, if your business relates to such services then you need to connect to the Google integrated partners. There are plenty of booking software providers that you can select for your business. Have a glance at this restaurant example image below!

Messaging Your customers can drop messages and get in touch with you in real-time. It allows you to answer the queries of your customers and ensure them the best customer experience! You need to enable the messaging toggle button by turning it ON.

Reviews Your business can get the value it deserves with the help of reviews from your customers.

Insights Insights in the GMB show how your customers find your listing on Search and Maps. From the GMB insights data, you can derive the data of:

• Views
• Direct
• Discovery
• Website Visits
• Phone Calls
• Messaging or Chat option
• Actions that your customers take on your GMB listing.

Insights will better help you to analyze your listing and determine how it’s performing (Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly)

Final Thought Ultimately, Google My Business can help you enhance your Local SEO when you optimize all the above-given points. Don’t forget to share it on social media sharing buttons given below so more and more people can learn!