How to boost local SEO by listing your business on Google My Business

SEO is great! But local listings rank even higher on search result pages. This is why you should use the gift of web directories to get noticed online. Listing your business is essential to success. Web directories and industry aggregators are prime real estate for listing your business online! It has become increasingly important to choose the right digital marketing channels.

Gone are the days of massive business directories like Yellow pages. These used to be a staple in your household too. You had to ruffle through the pages. All just to find and contact the businesses and services you required. Performing the same action has quite literally moved to your fingertips over the past two decades. You are a quick Google search away from finding all the necessary details about a business. It includes the address, directions, contact number, website, photos, reviews, and even FAQs!

Search engines are now the largest directories of information.

Is your business on them?

Benefits of listing your business online

Before we get into specifics. Let’s take a quick look at the obvious benefits and general features of listing your business with these digital directories:

Increase visibility

Google itself has announced that SEO isn’t affected by listing your business with Google My Business. But any local intent usually shows first. There’s a clearly visible and highly positioned business or map listing on search. So clearly, this does contribute to increasing your visibility on the search engine’s results page (SERP). Even planning your marketing mix, one of the most accessible “PLACE” for accurate information, will be from your business listing!

Increase traffic

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are vital. You can drive the customer to call, get directions or verify opening hours. You are moving customers through the marketing funnel. FOR FREE! You can provide them with enough information to visit a physical storefront or call to get the right information. This drives offline traffic. The listing can also provide links to the website and other digital resources which increases online traffic.

Engage with customers

Besides the calls to action (CTAs) that allow customers to interact with the listing, all directories provide ratings and reviews to share their experiences. You can exercise the option to ask questions. This allows you to engage with the brand. Adding yet another digital platform for queries. Customers can also share photos of their experiences, which is great!

Establish trust

Viewing reviews, comments, and ratings from other customers is a daily occurrence. When you are searching for a local business and its offerings, it helps build a brand image in your mind.  If you see extremely high ratings, it’s great. You can be easily impressed with reviews complimenting service and quality. So are your customers! And it would definitely enable you to build trust in the business. For example, it would be hard to trust a business that has the wrong contact number listed. Even worse for an incorrect address on its business listing on the SERP.

Get useful insights

You can easily access information that web directories collect. It is usually shown to the listing owner. But you can grant access easily to others. It’s a collection of insights and reports that shows incredibly useful numbers. Including, but not limited to search volume, queries, the no. of location requests, calls, FAQs, among other customer actions.

It is clear from the above that a majority of the advantages benefit local businesses. But as long as you have a physical location, these listings will add value to your business! The listing also aligns perfectly with your funnel framework such as STDC, which we highly recommend you check out!

So, what are the options for listing your business?

You already know that the search volume game is skewed heavily in favor of Google. The term “search” itself is interchangeable with “google”. I even had to google statistics to write this post. As of March 2021, 92.41% of global search volume is on Google. With Bing (2.46%) and Yahoo! (1.48%), having the best-of-the-rest share. Seeing this data, it may seem logical to just focus on listing your business with Google My Business. But you have to keep in mind that the quoted data is global and regional shares vary.



Since setting up your listing is relatively simple, you should at least have it listed with the directories of the top 3 platforms for your region. Besides the web directories run by the big search engines. There are other online business directories like Yelp And Foursquare. You can still rely on them as trusted sources of information.

The key is always going to be your customers. As long as your customers are going to be using a particular platform, you need to be there. It’s only fair that you provide useful and accurate information for their convenience.

Let’s take a look at an example:

In a previous role, I worked with a 5-star hotel with 7 different restaurants and bars. I actively managed their TripAdvisor profiles and it directly impacted our inquiries and bookings! TripAdvisor is a great directory for travel and tourism-related information. And it would definitely increase your brand’s visibility to claim/create your listing and populate it with relevant information. In fact, over the first 3 months, it led to a direct 43% increase (average month-on-month) in bookings. And these were only those that specifically cited TripAdvisor as their reference!

The best part: It was completely FREE!

Now, let’s take a closer look at Google My Business! The top business directory today. And some useful features that can boost your visibility online. It will also provide customers with accessible and helpful information about your business.

Google My Business

Google My Business is not just Google’s business listing directory. Firstly, it is a prerequisite for listing on Google Maps. It also populates the information you see on knowledge panels. This is what Google shows at the side (for desktop) and top (for mobile) of its search pages for local business information. This happens when someone searches your business name directly.

Additionally, if you search for a business type eg. “Car repair garage near me”. Google shows a list of businesses in the area matching that business type. It’s all within a Google Maps panel known as “Local Pack”. This places your business directly with local competitors in your space. 

Setting Up

Both these results on a SERP significantly increase the chances of satisfying the search query. Thus, a potential customer, which is why Google prioritizes them. But the quality of the information is the responsibility of the business owner. Your listing has to be created or claimed. Then all your basic information like Business name, description, address, business hours, photos, business category, contact information, and website need to be updated. Those are basic requirements to set up your GMB listing.

Once you are set up, you can look at setting up more business-specific details. For eg., if you have a business in the food & beverage industry. You can list your menu and related services such as delivery, take-out, outdoor searching, wheelchair accessibility under “attributes” in the “Info” section of your listing.  It is also highly recommended to add photos and videos of your business. Since you have no control over most of the photos on your listing that are taken and posted by customers. Having visual content curated by you will put forward the best representation of your business. 

To supplement the content and information that you are putting forward on your listing, GMB has an immensely useful feature “Posts”. Where you can share promotions, discount codes, special events, and any offers. The posts show up right at the bottom of your knowledge panels. So there is a good likelihood of being noticed. You can definitely use it to communicate useful information with potential and existing customers!

Here are a couple of great resources that can help you with listing your business:

There is an immensely useful guide by Search Engine Journal on How to create Google My Business posts that get results, that discusses best practices for GMB posts!

For Bing places, Brightlocal has an all-you-need-to-know guide that covers the setting up and management for your listing on Bing Places.

Conclusion

The sheer simplicity of listing your business on web directories, coupled with the possibilities for increased visibility and engagement, make it an important step in setting up the digital footprint of your business online. The insights can also help you understand your customers better. This could help SEO, content ideas, site structure, and other aspects of your digital marketing plans. Just remember that your customers are always going to look for you on platforms they use and trust. It is up to you, to meet them there.