Google My Business, what’s this?

Google My Business is Google’s platform allowing businesses to manage their local presence. This will enable a company to manage how her business is shown within Google and Google Maps results. Furthermore it allows a company to display all crucial information about a point of sale (opening hours, itinerary, reviews,…) within those results.

Notice:
Using Google My Business will also have a positive impact on your SEO authority. SEO (search engine optimization within organic search results) and SEA (Search engine advertising) are additional methods to gain visibility on the internet.

Where will my Google My Business page be displayed?

1. Presence on the Local Pack
   The Local Pack includes 3 search results. When a search on Google is about a specific company and that each POS of this company is optimized, you will see three points of sale in those results. When your search is more generic, other businesses from the same activity sector will also show up in the Local Pack. The display depends on the situation:   

   If your search request is too generic and that your business isn’t optimized well, it won’t appear in this list. To find it, your audience will have to click on ‘More places’ and find your business in a more exhaustive list on Google Maps.

2. Presence in the Local Knowledge Panel 
   When your search request is rather precise, you’ll see a Google My Business page (only one point of sale) on the right side of the search results.
3. Presence within Google Maps
   In Google Maps your search results will appear as a list on the left side of the screen. This list will automatically adapt when you move the location on the map. When you select a point of sale in this list, it will appear as follows:

Which information can be managed (or generated automatically) through your Google My Business account?

You can find different types of information on the Google My Business page of a business. The objective of this information is to encourage your audience to visit your store and to enhance your web-to-store activities. Your Google My Business accounts allows you to share the following data with your audience:

• Classic information, like the name of your point of sale, the address, opening hours , phone number and a link to your website.
• Local content (Google Posts), you can share your promotions, events or content you want to share with your audience.
• Additional informations, like the payment methods accepted in your point of sale, exceptional opening hours, reachability of your store (parking or not, wheelchair accessible,…)
• Data shared by other users, like ratings and reviews, pictures.
• Products and services that your business provides.
• Permanent tools that allow your audience to interact with your point of sale:
  • a click-to-call button;
  • a graphic will show an estimation of your daily traffic affluence;
  • an itinerary to reach your location;
  • extra links that allows your audience to take specific actions: make an appointment, make an order, book a table, show a menu/ list of services… (Other links, like the link to a similar business will automatically be shown on your page. They can’t be modified).

Note: If you manage all this data it will definitely enhance your local SEO. But keep in mind that Google has its own criterias to determine the best local results : Relevance, distance and importance.

Google My Business management for multiple points of sale

Google My Business has a simple interface and includes a reporting tool allowing you to measure the impact of your efforts. This reporting will also provide you with insights on how to improve your results. For example, your reporting shows that your business received more bad reviews than positive ones. What can you do about it to change the balance?

From the point of view of a company, managing Google my Business is a time consuming task because each individual store has its own Google My Business page and in order to adapt your whole network you have to manage each Google My Business page one by one.

ITheir are tools can help you with this task. At Mobilosoft for example, we developed our own platform. My.Mobilosoft allows you to manage this data for all your locations on Google and Facebook. My.Mobilosoft is also designed to involve community managers and local managers into the process, in order to create an efficient collaboration between departments.

Do you want to know more? Don’t hesitate to contact our Sales Team!

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