Nowadays, almost everyone goes to Google whenever they need to know or look for something. It has become the go-to option for all kinds of questions. Thinking from a business perspective, it holds a great degree of importance.
People who are in the business world may have already heard of Google Business Profile as it created quite an uproar when it was first introduced.
A relatively new but quite effective concept is Google Business Profile. By definition, the Google business profile (formerly known as Google My Business) is a tool that allows people to represent their business on Google Search and Google Maps.
If you put in keywords on the search engine, these businesses will show up with a short description, location, contact details, available hours, website links, reviews, top pictures, etc.
These help in providing the searcher with enough information to make their decision regarding whether to visit the site or interact with the business or not. In this regard, they contribute to the SEO strategy as they bring relevant traffic to your site. Professional marketing companies provide guaranteed SEO services that promise to bring worthwhile results to your business.
Account to Google, using Google My Business, Levy & Co boosts their reservations by 70%.
When you create a Google Business Profile (GBP), you have total autonomy over all the content that you want to show. The entire section including all the information is created by you so you can control how your business appears on search engines.
These businesses are free and can be acquired by anyone that falls into a certain category. Of course, there is an eligibility criterion that must be met to be qualified for a Google Business Profiles.
But there are some limitations implemented by Google’s Business Profile Guidelines that all Google Business Profiles must follow.
Here we are going to explain to you in detail the guidelines of a Google Business Profile:
Eligibility Criteria
The topmost important aspect is that there should be a physical location of your business or a physical interaction between you and your target audience must be possible. If you do not have a physical location or you do not have physical interaction with your customers, you are not eligible to be listed in Google Business Profiles.
The location here is not important. It can be an official business location or even your own home if you are a small business owner, but it should facilitate physical communications between you and your customers.
If you have hired a good marketing agency to make your Google Business Profile, they can provide you with affordable digital marketing services while not compromising on quality either.
images-source: odd.dog
NAP Consistency
Many acronyms and abbreviations are thrown left, right, and center when we talk about the digital world and more precisely, SEO. NAP is one of the acronyms that is used a lot by business owners.
NAP is an acronym that stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. While NAP consistency is important for any business, it is an important prerequisite to list in Google Business Profiles.
Having NAP consistency helps businesses in connecting with their target audience. It also helps businesses in ranking well in organic search results. By using NAP consistency, you are making yourself available and reachable to your target audience.
Just like a website lists your whole address and contact details, NAP should be concrete in providing that information also on the search results. Here is a more detailed explanation of what NAP includes:
1) Name
Your business should be represented online like it is represented in the real world. It means including everything online like you are including everything offline.
Many times business owners opt for an acronym to call their business. But it is not a practical approach. You should only use your full business name in GBP so that it is easy to search and reachable to your target audience.
Keeping everything transparent is the key here. But avoid using trademarks, slogans, taglines, contact details, and business hours. These should not be a part of your name.
2) Address
The description of your address should be detailed enough to be easily found by people. Try to make the descriptions as clear as you can. This way, it will be easy for your target audience to find you if they choose to follow the address
If you are sharing a place with someone like a coworking space, try to put the whole address in the description so that your customers are not confused between your location with others.
Put your street address for “Address Line 1” and use the suite, unit number, and floor number for “Address Line 2”. This will help in accurately pinpointing your correct location.
In comparison to this, if you run a service-oriented business where you provide services to customers at their locations, you may want to list down the feasible locations where you can provide services. This way, people would know the location where you are available or where you are not.
Service-area businesses can only make a single profile for the metro area they serve. It would be impractical if you input your serving locations that are beyond a three-hour drive.
When you are making the profile for GBP, you are likely to be asked to enter a particular address. This is only for verification purposes. Here, you should leave the “business location” field empty. Fill in the “service area” instead.
3) Phone
The phone number that you use should be your business phone number and not your personal phone. You can click on the ‘Info’ tab on your Google My Business profile. Then go to the phone number section. Here, you can add your call tracking number as the ‘Primary Phone’ number and your business phone number as the ‘Additional Phone’ number.
Website
Your website should include everything that your business does and provides your target audience. If you have a physical location or several websites, you should use the website that represents your location most accurately.
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Business Hours
Mention your business hours so that your customers know when they can reach you. When you list your business hours, Google shows the opening and closing of your business based on these hours.
If you fail to include your business hours, not only you will not be eligible for GBP but also your customers will face trouble in contacting you.
Holidays, Vacations & Special Hours
Your business must be closed on some specific vacations, or holidays or offer certain specialty hours. Use Google’s special hours feature to adjust these special hours accordingly.
You can also use the more hours feature to further divide your available hours. For example, if you provide different services, like kids’ hours, pickup hours, drive-through hours, etc. Google provides some names and you can only pick from them. You cannot customize the names of your different hours.
Seasonal Hours
If your business provides services based on seasons, you can input your hours accordingly for the different seasons. In the other season that you do not provide services, you can just mention that your business is temporarily closed.
Business Categories
You should select the most appropriate category for your business as it will help in ranking your business on search engines accurately as well as tell your customers about you.
For a better chance, you should select a few categories surrounding your business to further help you. The key here is to get as specific as possible. Do not just add categories so you can get more traffic. It will only have an adverse effect and you will not rank for your related categories.
It has happened rarely that people are unable to find their relevant category on Google but it is not impossible. It can happen sometimes. For this, select a general category that can be a bit wide. You should routinely check Google to see if your particular category is added or not.
Business Description
This part explicitly explains your whole business, its products or services, values, culture, vision or mission statement, etc. It would be best if you were careful here because this business description will define your business to your viewers.
Google has a word limit of 750 characters. This restriction makes it a bit more complicated as you have to explain your whole business in these limited words. While it can be difficult to figure out what should you include and what you should not in your business description, we can help you in narrowing down your options:
- Business product or service
- Unique selling point or proposition (USP)
- Mission or vision statement
- Competitive advantage over your competitors
Make sure that your business description accurately reflects what your business is all about. Do not overpromise or misrepresent your business as it will only create false expectations among your target audience that you will fail to deliver.
Try to be truthful in your business description as it helps in creating transparency between you and your target audience from the very beginning. Focus on creating original content and do not copy-paste anything from your competitors.
Many businesses make the mistake of being extremely informal in their speech which borders on vulgar language. You can be informal based on your intended target market but the use of vulgar language is a big no. It does not matter who you are targeting, crass language is always unacceptable.
In addition to this, refrain from promoting, or publishing any hateful and despicable content or comment. Your content should not give rise to bullying or harassment. Also, make sure that your content is not inciting any kind of hate towards a particular religion, race, ethnicity or culture, etc.
The above-mentioned are the important guidelines that you should follow if you wish to be eligible for the Google Business Profile. If you do not follow these, you will not be considered qualified for GBP. Even after appearing in the list, if Google sees any violations of the guidelines from your side, it can suspend your listing.
You need to be critically aware of the GBP guidelines and should follow them strictly. Your Google Business Profile can be a great source of traffic for you and can bring plenty of potential customers.