How to Expand the Reach of Your Google Business Profile

Time to read: 9 minutes

Here Are the 8 Most Important Things You Can Do

Having a business in the modern world means maintaining a strong online presence, plain and simple. The time of relying solely on traditional advertising and word of mouth has passed, as your customers are connected to the web for most hours of the day, and you need to meet them where they are.

Along with having a robust SEO strategy in place, and possibly a PPC one as well, you’ll want to cover all your bases by fully optimizing your Google Business Profile so you can get the most bang for your buck.

Let’s take a look at some key tactics for expanding the reach of your Google Business Profiles so you can get those leads and sales you’ve been seeking.

1. Get as Many Reviews as Possible

The importance of having a steady stream of Google reviews cannot be overstated, and you obviously want as many positive reviews as you can get as well.

For one thing, reviews serve as a way to showcase your business to customers and help them build trust in your services. As we reported on our SEO facts and stats page, 63.6% of consumers will check Google reviews before visiting a business, and 92% of consumers looking for B2B services are more likely to make a purchase after reading reliable reviews.

But it’s not just consumers who want you to have plentiful and positive reviews – it’s Google as well. The search engine incorporates Google Business Profiles and their reviews as ranking factors, so the more and better reviews you have, the more likely you are to rank well.

Here are some best review practices to follow:

• Reach out personally to longstanding customers and those who you know appreciate your business and ask them if they could leave you a review – most are more than happy to!

• You can also send out review reminders attached to email newsletters, as part of follow-ups to purchases, in social media posts, and in other ways to increase your numbers

• At minimum, try to get at least 10 reviews on your GBP, as we’ve seen that this can make a big difference!

• Do not discourage or prohibit negative reviews or ask for only positive reviews, as this goes against Google guidelines

• Do not offer or accept any money, discounts, or anything else of value for reviews, as this is also prohibited

• Do not leave a review of your own business, or have current employees do so

• Do good work! Happy customers will be pleased to give you good feedback if they’re satisfied with their experiences

By following our key tactics and avoiding some pitfalls, you’ll be well on your way to shaping up your Google Business Profile in no time.

2. Get Local Links to Your Website

While this tactic relates to your own website rather than your external Google Business Profile, it’s actually essential for giving a boost to both.

Any site of value linking to your website is positive, but local sites, which can include chambers of commerce, area businesses, government organizations, and more, can signal to Google your importance and relevance to a given region, and Google will respond in kind with boosted rankings in those areas.

Central to this is moving the needle in your local pack map rankings. You might not know the term, but you surely understand the concept, since when you search for a service or type of business on Google or Google Maps, you will see many places close to you listed in local results. Their ranking isn’t arbitrary – it’s based on a host of factors, with reviews and local links being two of the biggest ones.

To start getting more local links, you’ll want to pursue any opportunities found on chambers of commerce, local business directories, and citation websites. From there, you could begin sponsoring community events, making newsworthy impacts on your city, and many other tactics.

3. Use the Right Website Address

You obviously want your customers to be able to find your company outside of your Google Business Profile, so directing them to the right URL will be key. Here are some best practices:

• If you are a single-location business, this process should be simple, as using your homepage is the way to go. Users who land on your homepage can then navigate to wherever is most relevant to them, and they can begin to examine your offerings.

• If you are a multilocation business, things are a bit trickier, since you really should be using more than one Google Business Profile. Each physical location, whether they are located in completely different cities or are merely streets away from each other, should have a GBP all its own.

• The reason for having multiple Google Business Profiles is that each can make an impact, rise in the Google rankings, and help you connect with more customers.

• So, if you operate a multilocation business, you’ll actually want separate landing pages on your site for each location. For instance, for us, we have pages for our Chicago office, Pittsburgh office, and more.

• It’s these area-specific landing pages that you would want to link in your Google Business Profiles, corresponding each link with their relevant locations.

4. Add Photos and Videos on an Ongoing Basis

While copywriting is key to good performance online, it’s not the only kind of content that matters. Customers like multimedia, including quality pictures and videos, so Google wants to give that to them.

You’ll want to regularly update your Google Business Profile with pictures of your staff, your operations, your products and services, and anything else relevant. Video, though a bit more complicated to execute, is worthwhile as well, but you don’t even need a videographer, necessarily. A simple “talking head” video or a walkthrough of your facility with a cell phone (and good lighting) can go a long way.

5. Keep Your Hours Up to Date

If you want to do business effectively, your customers need to know when you’re available. This is particularly true for service-oriented businesses and brick-and-mortar stores, but it can also apply to ecommerce sites and other online companies, since sometimes customers simply need to speak to a human and want to know when they can.

To this end, ensure your business hours are up to date on any profiles you oversee, keeping in mind:

• You may have altered your hours on your website at some point in the past, but didn’t update your GBP

• If you have different locations, they may have different hours, and these need to be reflected on each profile

• You may need to set “special hours” within the system for major holidays, company closures, trade shows, and more

• You should beware of any typos to avoid creating confusion and upsetting customers

6. Respond to Reviews

Circling back to your reviews – it’s not enough to just have them, as you should be responding to them, whether they are positive or negative. We’ve shared plenty of stats on our online reviews page, but here are some key ones related to responses:

• 55% of online users say they would feel good about a business that has an owner who responds to their review

• 22% of consumers, meanwhile, would avoid a business that doesn’t respond to online reviews

• Crucially, 56% of consumers say that they change their view of a company based on how company representatives respond to reviews

• 56% of online users also state that a business’s response to a review has altered their view on how “responsive, responsible, and caring” the company is

So, it should be clear from these stats that consumers want to see businesses responding to their reviews. Here are some best practices to get you started:

• As stated above, respond to all reviews, whether positive or negative

• Respond to positive reviews with enthusiasm and gratitude, thanking the person for their review and possibly mentioning something about your experience or interactions with them – “We loved helping you with ____,” “It was a pleasure working on your ____,” and so on

• Respond to negative reviews with professionalism and understanding, expressing that you are sorry to hear about their negative experience and that you’d like to talk to them more about it on the phone

• This last aspect shows that you are willing to work with customers who have had bad experiences, but it also keeps messy details out of the public eye

• Do not, no matter how insulting the review may be, lash out at an unhappy customer – it will only reflect poorly on your business and keep other potential customers away

7. Fully Optimize Your Profile

We’ve covered many key areas of Google Business Profiles above, but there are so many more to work with. For any accounts you oversee, you will want to include core information about your business, filling out the following:

• The business description, possibly incorporating keywords to let users know they can get what they are looking for
• Products and services you provide
• Business categories that apply to you
• Your address (or service area) and phone number
• Social media profile links

Doing so will not only give your future customers the information they need but will signal to Google that you care about your online presence, making you more likely to be rewarded with higher rankings.

8. Consider Using Call Tracking

Call tracking, supplied by services like CallRail, allows businesses to create a replacement number for their own company phone number. This replacement number will still relay calls to your main number, but it will also give you the ability to see how customers found your business.

When you add these call tracking numbers to your Google Business Profile, website, PPC landing pages, and anywhere else you expect to get significant interaction from customers, you will be able to segment out each one and see which areas are performing the strongest.

Need Some Help with Your Profiles? Choose the Experts!

At Sixth City, we’ve helped companies in diverse industries to boost their local and national presences through Google Business Profile optimization and other key tactics.

Reach out to our dedicated team today for assistance!