Understanding Google My Business

It is definitely a task attempting to keep up with all the incarnations Google goes through with their local products. Google Maps, Places, Google+ Local, and now, Google My Business. Before you go running away, throwing up your hands, let me just tell you that it’s not bad at all.

Promoted by Google as a way for local merchants and service providers to create and manage listings all in one simple to use platform, they appear to have accomplished exactly that!

Google sees this as a way to centralize all your listings that have anything to go with Google; search, maps, Google+ and Local and have them all close at hand for easy access and management. Let’s see what this new platform offers, and why we think it will work for you.

5 Reasons Why You’ll Want to Create Your Local Presence on Google My Business

    1. Google My Business centralizes all your information – No longer will you have all your information spread out over several different Google platforms, increasing the chances that you can have errors and thus ranking problems. Now you’ve got one place to go to update, add images, virtual tours, and more.
    2. Use Google+ to Connect with Your Customers – Using the Google+ platform integrated with GMB, you have an easy way to connect directly to your customers and prospects through your company’s Google+ page, add content and images, and you even have the ability to use Hangouts. Very cool.
    3. Customer Review Management – Everyone likes this one. Now you have a simple solution to managing your reviews through Google+ You can see and easily interact with anyone who leaves a review, and take care of any problems promptly.
    4. Run Everything From Your Phone – Out and about? Now using the Android or iOS apps it is possible to run your business with the Google My Business platform wherever you are. This even applies to ad campaigns!
    5. Google My Business Customer Insights – A surprisingly useful statistical function shows you where your customers are coming from, what they’re clicking, and more. It also integrates easily with your Google Analytics account, as well as Adwords. Not bad, Google!