Keeping multiple locations as a business owner may appear to be substantially more complex than managing a single location listing. Fortunately, when it comes to marketing multi-location businesses, one of the most effective free tools for making it more efficient is using a Google My Business (GMB) profile.GMB profiles help promote customer engagement by listing businesses in Google’s local search results and on Google Maps. Additionally, it is simple to set up and manage, and it has the potential to generate significant income for multi-location businesses.
Set up and Verify your Business on GMB
Google My Business is a key component of local SEO, and in managing a multi-location business, it’s important that your listing data is accurate and up to date.
For any Google service to function properly, you must first create a Google account, and acquiring one is completely free.
Setting up a Google My Business profile is vital for local search ranking. Follow the steps below to get everything right.
- Create a new Google Account and log in.
- Go to google.com/business to explore further.
- Fill up the blanks with your company name.
- Input the physical address where the business is located.
- Indicate the service areas.
- Select your business category from the drop-down menu.
- Include a phone number for contact as well as a website URL.
- Complete the verification process for your Google My Business account.
Google, of course, needs to be able to verify your company’s location where you claim it is, and new GMB accounts have three options for doing so:
- Postcard verification
- Phone verification
- Email verification
Google My Business Listing Optimization
Google My Business optimization is the most effective strategy, particularly for multi-location businesses. This makes it easy to correlate the signals you transmit with the search intents associated with each location.
The following are some tips for optimizing your Google My Business listing.
- Choose all relevant categories for your business.
- Accurate NAP.
- At least one relevant business category.
- High-quality photos.
- Three or more reviews with an average rating of three stars or higher.
- Encourage reviews on industry sites like Yelp, YP.com, and Foursquare.
- Use Google Posts to promote events, offers, and content.
- Regularly update each location’s photo gallery. This might include photographs of your location, staff, services, etc.
- Include features that guests would like.
Bulk Verification for Multiple Locations
Google indicates that business owners can handle ten or more of the same business at the same time. But the business must first need to be ‘bulk verified’. When using bulk verification, you can quickly add new locations and edit current listings without having to go through the tedious process of manual verification.
Create a ‘location group’ for your business in order to take advantage of bulk location administration. If you want to seek bulk verification, you should create and submit a spreadsheet that has all of the location information.
Google also specifies:
- The business information for each site should be accurate and updated. For each listing, define the brand name, URL, and GMB categories.
- All business locations, whether published or not, should be included in your bulk account.
- Prior to bulk verification, duplicate listings should be deleted.
How to Successfully Manage Multiple Locations on Google My Business
Managing multi-location business listings on Google My Business is one thing, but doing it well requires planning, equal distribution of resources, and a dedication to delivering the best quality of information available for both the business and customers.
Google My Business is a great free tool for driving traffic and conversions with minimal effort, and as a multi-location business owner, it is critical that you use it as part of your comprehensive digital marketing plan.
And to wrap it up…
No matter how niche your business is, competition is very high. It is critical that you have the appropriate local SEO tools on hand, such as Google My Business, to help you evaluate your local search presence and make informed decisions.
Multi-location businesses should understand how to optimize Google My Business with appropriate and up-to-date images, reviews, categories, and other information in order to remain on track and profitable. GMB is particularly beneficial to multi-location businesses because it allows users to optimize for maximum visibility while also ensuring that their data is accurate overall.
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