Making your company make an impression is more important than ever. Here are some easy strategies to get some quick wins.
Every business in the world is looking to increase its online exposure, especially on Google.
How do you get your name placed in front of the right people when you use local search results and the Map Pack?
Enhancing the performance of Your Google Business Profile (GBP) listing places your business’s local location in a prime position to be found and convert interested searchers into paying customers.
Here are some suggestions to help you get quick wins without breaking the bank.
1. Encourage reviews
Reviews are among the most effective ways to increase your GBP, and they’re free and can significantly increase the profile of your company to organic searchers.
Consider how you could be able to sort through a variety of general contractors within your community even if you’ve never hired one previously.
It is difficult to determine what the claims on the contractor’s site are correct because there is no third-party verification of things like costs or the quality of work.
In this situation, the only thing you require is GBP reviews that will help you climb on the local search rankings.
People searching for contractors in their region will more likely consider your business reliable when they see 10-15 reviews within the four-to-five-star category.
However, these reviews will not appear overnight.
Sometimes, you need to make a few calls to customers who are happy to get them to write reviews.
It is possible to do this via mail, postcard, or simply by asking them to share their experiences.
Another alternative is to use review management platforms like BirdEye, ReviewPush, and Positive. These platforms permit you to:
Sort your customer reviews.
Review text messages and send them to the recipient.
Respond to the latest Google reviews directly through emails that alert you to new studies.
Whatever way you decide to do it, your reviews should encourage your customers to be transparent and precise in their reviews.
Demand that they provide photos of the original work you completed for them or a product you’ve sold them.
Photos can be a great way to boost your GBP’s visibility to the world.
2. Avoid Spammy Tactics
Google is certainly intelligent enough to recognize who is trying to manipulate the system through example by automating web pages, creating doorways, and keyword stuffing.
Similar principles apply to GBP.
Google’s tool is a good question: why would the most powerful and most powerful search engine ever allow you to use fraudulent tactics, such as offering people money to leave positive reviews?
Customers who are considering buying from you will be able to trust honest reviews.
Google and the review websites I mentioned also do this. They will tell you if you’ve paid an untrustworthy website to fake a 5-star review for your business.
Review sites can spot fake reviews and mark your website as untruthful.
The flag will trigger an alert that visitors will encounter when they visit one of your websites, warning that they should not trust your website.
Similar principles apply to providing incentives, like discounts for the future, to write favorable GBP reviews. In this instance, the same thing could harm your reputation online.
If they include the incentive in their reviews, prospective customers may think their praise is false.
While at the same time, the idea of bribing reviewers to give positive reviews obscures the possible facts of the situation.
Even if customers had bad experiences with your company, they wouldn’t mention it when they write reviews even if they didn’t like it.
This means it is more likely that customers in the future are potential to become “fooled” and end up being disappointed even though they were expecting something more.
3. Respond to Negative Reviews
Instead of trying harder than you are engaged in these tactics, I would advise you to avoid negative GBP reviews before they occur or promptly respond to any negative reviews.
The latter would certainly necessitate you to dig deep and ensure that every aspect of your company is operating efficiently.
Provide your customers with service throughout the day when something goes wrong, make sure you take action right away, and make sure that people leave your establishment happy.
If negative reviews are posted online, you should reach out to those who left reviews to apologize and understand. This will show the public that you value your customers, even after they go your business.
4. Leverage GBP Tools
My final suggestion to boost your GBP would be to make use of the resources Google offers to help you with your online business.
One of these features is Google Marketing Kit, which allows you to make posters, stickers, and social media posts that promote your business’s events and promotions.
Particularly, posting on social networks can be a major boost for your web presence.
You can make attractive posters of your favorable reviews, with blurbs derived from the review text. You can then post them to your social media sites.
GBP allows users to access your local profile the same way as they would use a social networking site like Facebook and Instagram. The followers will then gain access to your businesses.
New social posts.
All of these factors aid in increasing brand awareness for your customers.
Finally, Google Posts lets you announce new coupons, deals, or other events in unique ways. It is possible to employ videos, images, and call-to-action buttons to boost your customers’ engagement.
Google Posts is a great marketing tool for GBP because its analytics feature lets you know how users reacted to what you wrote. The data you gather to create more effective posts in the future.
Take a look at Google’s Local Favourites program, too. It gives physical and digital badges to the top five percent of local businesses in each segment.
Conclusion
Google is asking you to enhance your local business profile, and Google wants to foster healthy competition among local businesses.
