Over the years, Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) has rapidly become an indispensable tool for gaining visibility on the Web and making yourself known to the general public. But why is it so important to use it? And what should you include?

5 essential elements to optimize your Google business listing

Your business information

The most important thing when creating your Google Business Profile is to include your business information. This is the main objective of this tool. By entering your name, address, telephone number and field of activity. When someone searches for a company in your sector in your geographical area, your "Business profile" will appear in the first search results. A great way to win new customers!

To complete this commercial information and maximize your chances to be found but especially to be relevant to the requests of Internet users, Google allows you to add categories to your listing to specify the nature of your activity and your offers.

Thus a pizzeria will be able to add to its file the mentions "Pizzas to go" and "Pizza delivery" if it wishes to do so 🍕

Finally, if you are equipped with online appointment booking, you can integrate it into your file to allow your customers to make an appointment at any time of the day, bypassing your opening hours!

Indicate your exceptional hours

If you already have a Google Business Profile, then chances are your hours are already listed, but have you thought about entering your special hours? This feature of GBP applies to the holidays of our calendar but you can and should use it if you take time off or in case of confinement.

In the case of public holidays, Google will show your hours in orange with a mention like this: "Easter Monday, these schedules are likely to vary" and this whether your schedules change or not. On the other hand, if your schedules are informed, you will see a mention in green indicating the schedules of this day.

The impact of this feature for your business is not to be neglected:

👉by filling in your exceptional hours when necessary you indicate to Google that your listing is updated regularly so you automatically have a better chance of moving up in the search results.

👉 in terms of customer experience the benefit is not negligible. You thus ensure that Internet users who would like to visit you do not find a closed door.

Photographs of your activity

Photographs are a plus, but not an insignificant one. In fact, companies with photographs on Google Business Profile receive 42% more business inquiries than those without. Here's a simple example: you're looking for a restaurant near you, so you type "restaurant" followed by your location in Google. All Google Business Profile pages will appear in the first results. All you have to do is make your choice. Like most consumers, you'll want to take a look at customer reviews and photographs to see what the place looks like, and why not their creations.

Write posts to promote your offers

Thanks to Google Posts, you can now share your content like on social networks (articles, special offers...) directly on Google Business Profile. This will allow you to improve your referencing, while allowing your customers to directly access the content you want to distribute to them.

Your customers' opinions

By responding to customer reviews you can see your conversion rate increase up to 80%!

Customer reviews play an important role in consumers' final decision. It is therefore important to include them in your Google Business Profile page, in order to put all the chances on your side to attract the maximum of customers.

Taking the time to respond to reviews has two key benefits for your business:

👉 by responding to your customers' reviews, Google will consider that you are active and you will therefore be better referenced

👉 in a second step, responding to your customers' reviews will allow you to strengthen your customer relationship. Whether the reviews are very positive or a little less so, it is essential to take the time to respond to the feedback you have received: in the first case you will have a better chance of leading to loyalty, in the second you will show unsatisfied consumers that you are taking their feedback into account and to other internet users that you care about customer satisfaction.

Are you short of customer reviews?

Equipped with an appointment scheduling solution such as such as Agendize you can plan to send emails or SMS to your customers inviting them to leave their feedback in the form of a review on your Google business page!