Google My Business – What Is It and How Does It Work?

Published July 1, 2021

Launched in 2014, Google My Business became a business’s best friend for online searching. Google My Business is an online business directory that lets you manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps. If you skip out on using Google My Business, you potentially will miss out on customers and sales. Why? Well let’s dive a little deeper into what is Google My Business and how it works.

What is Google My Business?

In simple terms, it is a business profile within Google. But it is not just your Business Profile, rather a tool by which you enhance your Business Profile to boost its visibility and effectiveness. Business Profiles appear in Google Maps and in the local results of Google search. A listing on Google My Business can be an amazing marketing tool for search engine optimization (SEO). Obviously Google has some power on their search engine, but now it has allowed businesses to have their search space as well.

All that Google requires within the business profile is the business name, location, and category. Once it is confirmed that the business is not a duplicate, Google will create the business profile for that location. You can have multiple location profiles per business if you have separate addresses. For example, a doctor has two offices. The doctor can have two business profiles for the business with two separate locations. 

Is Google My Business Free?

YES! And it isn’t a scam. Google doesn’t charge to create a Google My Business profile. Plus, Google My Business does not operate on a pay by service level, like free, super, premium, etc., business model. This means that your business has the same level of access as your competitors. However, this could all change and it could become a paid service and eventually upsell the account levels. But for now, June of 2021, it is free.

Why Should I Use It for My Business?

Google always favors Google My Business profiles with extra information and user engagement, especially recent engagement. If your profile is up to date with a business image, hours, location, and services/products, Google will know that it is relevant information and will know to show it to someone searching for something similar. 

Additionally, your business profile is open to people to leave reviews, add their personal pictures, ask questions and even answer others questions. Google might also populate your profile for you from information that it finds online. Of course that can always be edited to make it fit to your business standards. You know your business best!

How Do I Set Up A Google My Business Profile?

Yay! Glad you’ve made it to this point of wanting to set up a Google business profile. It is the right thing for your business. 

To get a Google My Business account, go to google.com/business and click “Manage now,” which will take you through the steps of creating an account. Enter all of your information. Google will then need to verify the business location is actually yours. You’ll be sent a postcard by mail that will have a code on it to confirm it is yours. 

In the meantime, optimize and nurture your profile. Add your business hours, ask your best customers to add in some pictures and reviews, add your own pictures and make sure the other business information like location and contact information are correct.

Now What Do I Do with My Google My Business Profile?

Post to your Google My Business listing at least once a week. Think of it as an additional social media post. Make the Google My Business post something specific to your business and link to your website. Hashtags won’t matter for this post. If you have an image that you took, post that instead of one that you create and is just a general image. When you use a picture that you took at the business, it has location tags within the file that Google will recognize. We don’t have to get deep into how that works. Just think of it as picture magic!

Being active on your listing is always a good idea. Manage reviews, good and bad, add events that are happening for your business, add a new picture of a product or someone doing your service, or add in an offer that you want to share with your potential and current customers. If Google releases updated information grabs, a new item where it already shows the things mentioned previously, this should be posted about. At the time of this blog (June 2021) there is a Covid-19 update area where businesses can post Covid updates, like if they are closed or the rules have changed. There is a good chance that this particular information will be ranked better than others. Update your profile to match whatever Google is suggesting. 

Good luck with your Google My Business profile! If you have any questions or would like help setting up or managing your profile, contact us.

Google Update – Modified Broad Match is Out the Door

Published April 12, 2021

In February, Google announced yet another change to the structure of its keyword match types. Modified broad match is going away. This is the 5th time Google has made updates to the keyword match types. Some are saying these changes are positives and others are looking at them in an unfortunate negative light. What does it mean for you, your business or your clients?

 

What are Match Types?

There are (well were) 4 kinds of match types within Google Ads. These deal with how your keywords can trigger an ad to show:

  • Broad Match
  • Modified Broad Match
  • Phrase Match
  • Exact Match

For the purpose of this blog, just know that each type has their own stipulations as to which words are focused on within a search query. Users said that modified broad match and phrase match were often interchangeable and served the same purpose. Not that it matters now, but within modified broad match keywords, you would choose specific keywords that are required for your ad to show, through the use of a plus sign. The ads would only show for queries that contain all of the words you used with a plus sign in your keyword or phrase. Order did not matter.

 

Why This Matters

The big takeaway right now is that order will matter for how you place your keywords. Google will treat keywords as a phrase match type, but will expand it to cover the modifier traffic. In Google’s example below, the updated phrase match will not show ads for search queries in the opposite direction. 

+moving +services +NYC +to +Boston may show up for the search query “moving services NYC to Boston.” Previously, the ad may also display when someone searches “moving services Boston to NYC,” which won’t help the advertiser because the searcher is moving in the opposite direction.

This change could save you time in the long run as it eliminates a step in building out an ad. It is time-consuming to put together all of the different keyword requirements per ad. But it could also cause an issue in that your keywords may not mean the same thing as what you want searched. An example provided by Allison Day, WordStream’s Lead Acquisition Specialist, is that “get more Google ads” does not mean the same thing as “get more conversions on Google ads.” Additionally, due to the change, your traffic could fluctuate. This is to be expected. Just keep that in mind and make adjustments to your new ads moving forward. 

 

What Do I Have To Do?

Nothing right now if you are comfortable with that. In July, after this change has rolled out worldwide, advertisers won’t be able to create new modified broad match keywords. The current ones that are used will basically be grandfathered into the new behaviors. But really, keep alert to how this change does affect your ads and keyword searches in the coming months. Continue to use those negative keywords to block out bad traffic. You can also take the time now to revisit your account structure and potentially move around your ad spend budgets to make sure you aren’t focusing on modified broad searches. 

 

Does this change make a difference for you, your business or your clients? If you aren’t sure or have questions on how to make sure your keywords are spot on, you can always ask us as we try to stay on top of all changes that affect our clients’ best interests.