Appearing on the first page of Google’s search results makes a huge difference in the amount of enquiries your company receives. It is though, even for established companies, a continuous challenge to outpeform your competition and appear top of searches.
This is where Google My Business can help. It’s a tool provided by Google to help you share information about your business with your customers – and is a massive help to increasing your visibility in local search results.
Why is Local Search important?
97% of users search for local businesses online. These are searches for phrases like:
- Web Designers near me
- Builders near me
- Architects in Aberporth
- Solicitors in St Clears
Not only are searches like these likely to be highly relevant to local businesses, but the chance of a customer making a purchase is much higher when some form of ‘local intent’ is shown. In fact,
50% of people who do a local search on their phone go to a physical store within one day.
When an internet search includes some form of ‘local intent’, Google uses a different algorithm to decide on the results that are shown. It’s much easier for local businesses to get onto the first page of Google for these results than for more general searches.
Even better – when you carry out a local search, Google shows a local listings block – a map and the top three businesses it believes meets the user’s search criteria, including those businesses contact details.
And much of the information Google uses to make the decisions about which businesses to show in it’s local search results comes from Google My Business.
Get Google My Business working for you
Google My Business is a Google service that lets business owners register their company and provide a range of information that can be used in search results.
It also lets businesses publish photos, news and special offers, and lets their customers leave reviews – as well as offering businesses a right of reply.
It’s these factors that Google considers when creating local search results and, when set up right, drives more visitors to your website, more calls, and more customers.
To set up the service for your company, simply go to business.google.com and work through the steps.
Need help?
We offer a specialist service to set up or optimise a company’s Google My Business listing.
For a one-off charge of £85, we will:
- Work with you to collect all relevant information about your company
- Create all the relevant Google My Business listings for your business
- Populate all information correctly to maximise your opportunities of appearing in local search results
- Set up tools within your business to respond to Google My Business enquiries
- Provide a checklist of further steps that will help your local search performance improve.
To sign up, just fill in the form below.
Want to know more? Just give us a call on 0330 010 9000 and we’ll be happy to talk to you.