If you don’t have a Google Business Profile yet, you are missing out on potential traffic and customers! If you already have a Google Business Profile, have you posted on it recently or received any reviews within the past 6 months? It is not a “set it and forget it” kind of profile, it needs daily work like your other social media accounts. Here are some things you can do to improve your Google Business Profile, which also helps local SEO.
Upload images and videos.
Make it a monthly task to upload 5-10 new photos to your Google Business Profile. You should curate the photos that you upload – think of this profile as a mini portfolio for your company or the services you provide. Google doesn’t organize the photos by date, so this is why curation is important. Make sure to delete old photos so that your most recent photos have the potential to be shown first. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t allow for user uploaded photos to be deleted, so this is also why uploading new images monthly is important. You can also upload videos to your profile! Videos will be more prominent over photos, so make sure the videos you upload are polished and professional.
Create a Google update post monthly.
On top of uploading images to your Google Business Profile, you should be creating posts monthly as well. Treat the post like it was going to be on Facebook or LinkedIn. Your post should link to something, like a blog post or a service page for example. Some ideas for these posts are to share and link a new blog post, share and link an old blog post (if still relevant), highlight a recent award or feature or share an excerpt from a review. These posts will display below the reviews panel on your Google Business Profile that show up when someone searches for your business.
Ask for reviews.
Google provides a direct link for you to use to ask for reviews. You can add this link to your email signature for easy access, share it on your other social media profiles, use it in follow up emails and anywhere else you feel necessary. Once you get reviews, make sure to respond to them – even the bad ones, this is called social proof.
Written by Rae Mullet
