How to Setup Google My Business [Step-by-Step Guide]

[VIDEO TRANSCRIPT]

In today’s video, I’m going to show you how to set up a Google My Business profile.

Hi, I’m Oliver Bannister, co-founder of Mechanised and we design and build bespoke websites, e-commerce stores and provide SEO, Facebook and Instagram advertising, Google Ads and social media services.

So why do you need to watch this video?

Local businesses are facing challenging times at the moment and it’s really important to get as much exposure as possible. Due to COVID-19, some businesses are on reduced hours and services so it’s important to let your customers know what you’re currently offering.

Before I get into it if you like the video, like the video and if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and I’ll make sure that I answer them all. So let’s get into it.

So what is Google My Business?

When people use Google to search for services in the local area they’re presented with a map and list of local businesses. This is known as the local map pack and it shows the business name, the phone number, directions, reviews, opening times and a link to the website.

What makes it so good is that the local map pack appears before the first organic search results, so if you can get listed here you’re going to get more customers.

To stand a better chance of appearing in the local map pack what you need to do is create a Google My Business profile and add as much information as possible.

Step #1 — Create your profile

So let’s create you Google My Business profile.

So what you want to do is go to business.google.com and log in with your Google account next you want to click “add your business to Google” and type in your business name.

So for this example, we’ll just use a flower shop and if your business appears beneath and it’s got the correct address then select that if not just click “next”.

Then you want to choose a business category. So we’ll go for flower delivery. Do you want to add the locations that customers can visit so if you’ve got a shop or office? So we’ll click “yes”.

Then you want to enter your full address which will be displayed on Google maps

So you’ll be presented with a list of businesses that Google thinks is yours. If none of them are yours just click “none of these” and we just add it as a fresh one.

Then it asks do you want to serve customers outside of this location so if you deliver goods you want to click “yes” and then you want to put the area down that you do deliver to. So we’ll just put Greater Manchester. If you do deliver to multiple areas then you can just add another one in there.

Then you want to answer enter your contact details and your website address in there, there we go next and finish.

So Google’s is going to want to verify your location and business so what you need to do is just enter your contact name in there and Google will send a postcard to your business and on the back of that postcard there’ll be a code and then what you’ll need to do is that when you receive it is log back into Google My Business and then enter the code to verify it and so once you’ve got your name in just click “post” but for this, we’ll just click “verify later”.

So let’s quickly choose some opening hours so we’ll do all them and we’ll just mark them as 24 hours for now, we’ll save that, you want to add a quick description so people know what you are, we deliver flowers in Greater Manchester, save that, we’ll skip the photos for now and then just click continue. Okay that completes the first part.

Step #2 — Add more information

So the next step is to add some more information.

So from the dashboard just click on the info tab and here we can see all the information we just added. So if you have another category that your business could be listed under we can just click on here and add another category so we could be listed under florist as well so we’ll add that.

So we’ve got our opening times there you can also add special hours as well. So there are bank holidays, we’ve got Christmas Eve, Christmas Day so just click on confirm hours and then we’ll change that from to nine to one o’clock, apply.

And because we’ve selected a shop it’s given us the product option. So if you click products and get started so this gives you the option to upload some of your products as well so let’s just upload this and I’ll just call it flowers.

Category, enter category as well flowers, so you got fixed price, price range put your price in there a bunch of flowers in their, product description and here you can add a link to the buy online so you just type in URL here where you can find that product and save that, and that’s your product.

So then just repeat the process.

Step #3 — Add more photos

So the next step is to add some more photos.

So if you click on the photos tab and you’ll see you’ve got different sections. So you’ve got video, interior, exterior, product team and identity. So what we need to do first is upload your logo. So go to choose photo and then you want to find where you’ve saved your logo.

So once that’s uploaded you can play around with that if you want, once you’re happy go to set logo.

So that’s your logo done and then like I said you want to add at least three images to each one if you can just to complete your profile a bit more so we’ll add some interior shots as well,

and we’ll just add a couple of our office in Manchester, which is that.

So we’ve got some interior shots, we’ve got the identity as well so just work your way through all these categories if you can.

Step #4 — Get reviews

Okay, so the next step is to get some reviews.

So I’ve just switched over to our profile because we’ve got some reviews on there.

So what you need to do is, you can click on this where it says “share review form” and if you share this link with your customers then they can leave a review on your profile quite easily and you can share it through email, Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter, whatever is easiest for your customers and the more reviews you get the better your profile will look.

Step #5 — Add posts

So the next step is to add some posts to your profile.

So if you click on the post tab just like Facebook, Google My Business allows you to upload posts to your profile so you can share with your customers, this is fairly a new feature, not many people are using it so be good to take advantage of it.

So it’s a good opportunity to show off what you’ve been working on, if there are any updates to your services any offers or events on so to create a post just click on one of these at the top you can see there are different ones to choose from it can simply upload a photo write your post and again you can link out to a product or an offer or a blog and then just click publish.

Step #6 — Insights

So the next step is insights.

So once your profile is verified you’ll be able to unlock all the insights data. So it can tell you things like how your customers search for your business, what kind of queries they’re using to find your business as well, also where are they viewing your business is it on the listing search or in the maps.

You can see what kind of actions they do when they do find your profile, whether they’re clicking on your visit your website link, requesting directions or calling you directly through Google My Business.

You can also see where the direction requests are coming from in the local area.

You can track how many phone calls you’re getting through your profile, you can also see the amount of times your photos have been viewed compared to other businesses like you and finally, you can also see how many images you’ve got uploaded compared to other businesses as well. So that’s how you set up a Google My Business profile.

Make sure you follow the steps in the video to give your local business more visibility and keep your customers informed. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and I’ll make sure that I answer them all thanks for watching and see you later.