As reported by SEOTribunal.com, Google handles 3.8 million searches per minute on average across the globe that comes out to 228 million searches per hour, 5.6 billion searches per day. Each one of us every now and then looks up online to search for products or services, either because we want to have an idea of how and where we can get such product or service around our community or we are trying to compare prices obtainable in the local store with that online to make our buying decision. Other times, we are just trying to get more information and reviews about a brand, product, or service.

Whatever our reason might be, search engines like Google brings to us results closest to our searches with Google having a 92.8% usage, making it the most robust search engine globally. Google uses search result formulas that put into consideration several factors such as websites with multiple pages and page visits, locations closer to you, Google profile, keywords, etc to rank pages displayed. But most often, search results displayed on Google’s first pages get noticed and visited by users.

Each day, as online sales are getting higher than sales in the physical store, businesses are coming to realize the true benefit of taking their businesses online and perfectly positioning it in the right spot to get discovered and patronized. There are several tools available to help you as a business owner get discovered and sell online easily; one of such tools is Google My Business, a business tool developed by Google itself.

WHAT IS GOOGLE MY BUSINESS?
Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. Google My Business (GMB) is a very important marketing tool for any business or organization with physical locations. Through GMB, you can update your business profile on Google, get verified, appear on Google Maps, allow customers to make reservations at your location (get directions and call your locations), and engage your existing and potential customers through your Google reviews.

WHY YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS IT
1. EXTENSIVE AND FREE ENGAGEMENT WITH CUSTOMERS: You don't only have access to millions of potential customers, but Google my business also gives you access to features that let you engage your customers better. It's more than a business listing because GMB allows customers to find and connect with you easily from local google searches and international searches across the world through search engine and maps. From your profile, you can get huge insight on your number of page visits, when they visited, how many website clicks, phone calls dialed etc which can help you strategize your marketing plan better.

2. GMB AIDS DISCOVERABILITY AND VISIBILITY: As a GMB user, your business will appear more often on people's searches when they input keywords that relate to what you do. It's more like SEO but this is a business SEO. You get discovered even more than big companies without GMB. The sweetest part is that when your business name is searched by customers online google displays your google my business profile with your company /office images, google map direction, website and call buttons to directly get across to you. Also, customers will get to know your opening and closing hours and whether or not you are available for online appointments. Product images and content written by you are displayed on your page too, helping users/customers get the needed information that will prompt them to trust and patronize your product or service.



3. FEEDBACK AND REVIEWS: If you offer an awesome product/service, a customer’s review is something you should look forward to. On Google My Business, customers can drop ratings and reviews about their experience using your product or service. These ratings and reviews are very important as they tend to easily influence prospective customer’s perception of your brand and thus affect their buying decision. A good review gives trust and prompts customers to patronize while a bad one turns them away, with that in mind always ensure you provide the very best of service all round even to customer relationship and product delivery; as mal-handling, a product during delivery can earn you a bad review even if the product is top-notch in its self.

Google also tends to display business pages with more reviews to its users, hence the more reviews you have the more you appear often and better on search result pages. The interesting part is Google provides a link you can share with customers that will help them to easily drop a rating and review for you. This has worked effectively for us at bluraydesigns.com

4. THE BUSINESSES NEARBY FEATURE: When customers search for a particular product or service online, google makes use of the user’s location to filter businesses closer to them. Hence, with a robust Google My Business Profile, when users search for stuff like; Bakeries in Ibeju-Lekki Lagos, the search engine most often will rank their result with the closest bakery near the user’s location in Ibeju-Lekki. That means a business 1km away from the user/searcher will come up first before the one 20km away. This ensures that you capture your hood effectively online. For example, when you search for graphic design and printing services in Ibeju-Lekki Lagos, Bluray Designs pops up as number one, because we have effectively taken advantage of this useful tool to get discovered easily online and now we’ve earned Google verified status.

The value of this free and robust tool cannot be underestimated, as more businesses are moving online, physical stores are recording fewer sales, just don’t rent an office, and expect customers to come, that was a 20th-century business strategy. GO ONLINE, GET DISCOVERED.
If you will need an experienced digital marketing agency to help you manage and promote your brand online, kindly reach out to us, we will be glad to help.