Google My Business? Tips on How to Make It Your Business

If you own a business and want people to be able to find you, Google My Business is something you definitely need to check out. In Google’s latest Hangouts information session, they went over some tips for business owners to make the most of this feature.

Get Verified

Google My Business makes it easier for potential customers to find you, whether they’re using Search, Maps, or Google+. The first step is to get your business verified. Start by heading over to Google My Business and search for your company. If you can’t find it, you will be prompted to enter all the information needed in order to have it listed. As soon as your business is claimed, you can confirm your account through either postcard verification (yes, Google using snail-mail seems strange to us, too) or over the telephone. Once verified by Google, you will be able to update your company information to ensure your customers can find you online or in person.

Holiday Hours

Since we’re heading into the busy holiday season, you’ll want to make sure your hours of operation are accurate. There would be nothing worse than having a customer head over to your store on Christmas Eve only to find out that you’ve closed early. In order to update your business hours, you’ll need to give yourself at least two days headway. This means that if you would like to have your hours updated for the upcoming Wednesday, you would need to make the changes on Monday.

Quick tip: If you are open 24 hours a day, list that you’re open from 12:00am – 12:00am.

Pinned Posts

If you’re planning on promoting a holiday special or sales event, the Pinned Posts feature would be ideal for you. This tool allows you to pin announcements to the top of your page that will stay there until they are unpinned. To pin a post, you’ll have to open Google My Business and choose the page you’d like to manage, click My Business > Google+ Page in the top right corner of the screen, and on the post you’d like to pin, click the downward arrow and select “Pin Post.”

AdWords

Google conducted an online shopping analysis and discovered some surprising results. Did you know that a full third of all online shopping is done between the hours of 10:00pm and 4:00am? So how does this affect you? Simply put, it means that even though you may be sleeping, your AdWords campaigns shouldn’t be. This is especially important considering there’s a good portion of us who like to leave our online holiday shopping to the last minute!

Set It but Don’t Forget It

Although this may seem like common sense, the most important tip we can share with you is to ensure you actively manage your Google My Business account. This means logging in regularly to ensure your information is up to date, including hours of operation, descriptions, products, services, and whatever else you have listed. All of this contributes to how easy it is for customers to find your business!

Should you have any questions or issues setting up or managing your dealership’s Google My Business account, give us a call at 1-888-914-1444.