Google My Business is a free tool for business owners to manage their online presence across Google Search and Google Maps. It helps your customers to find you when they search for a business like yours. Hence having a Google My Business page is an integral part of digital marketing. If you have not claimed your listing yet, do it now.
If you are a new business owner, or if you are new to Google My Business, you may have many questions. To answer all your queries, we are listing all the common Google My Business frequently asked questions, and answering them. Read this blog post, and get all the answers for your queries at one place. Here we go.
1. What is Google My Business Q&As?
Google wants to provide all the information at one place. A typical Google My Business page has information about opening and closing times, address, contact number, reviews, map, pictures, directions, link to the business website and business description. These are the most basic questions that potential customers try to find an answer before making a contact.
However, there can be some more questions that should be answered. For instance, whether the business has a parking space? Or is the business handicap friendly? So, Google has smartly come up with the GMB Q&As. Google My Business Questions and Answers are crowdsourced. In other words, anyone can question, and anyone can answer the question. The best part is that your customers will get to know your business more closely. In addition to that, you will know what are the consumer concerns and how to satisfy them.
2. How much does it cost?
Google My Business is absolutely free. Do not pay any kind of amount to any person. There are many scams that try to charge you for setting up your GMB page. Do not fall for these scams. Setting up Google My Business is as simple as creating a Facebook account. Adding the correct business name, phone number, address, description, pictures and videos, and other important details is all it takes to set up. The whole process is, simple, effortless, and less time-consuming. Even a person who is new to Google My Business can create his page within a couple of minutes.
3. Why do I need Google My Business If I already have my own website?
GMB is not a substitute for your website. Your website and Google My Business page, go hand in hand. So, having both a website and Google My business account can work in favor of you and improve your search engine optimization and other digital marketing efforts.
The main purpose of Google My Business is to give your local business a public identity and presence on Google, so that, when a customer searches for a business like yours reaches you. In simple words, the information you provide can appear on Google Search and Maps and help your website to get more exposure and customers. Since Google My Business costs nothing, there is no reason to ignore it.
4. Does Google My Business have a mobile app?
Yes, Google My Business has a mobile app, and it is free. And this is one of the reasons why people love GMB. The mobile app allows you to do everything you do in your web account. Here are the main features:
Edit or add new information directly through the Profile Editor.
Click photos and enhance them with a range of excellent filters, and post in your Profile.
Create posts for new events, offers, and launches.
Know who is interacting with your GMB profile, and continue the connection. You can do this by using Customer tab. A Customer tab allows you to respond to reviews, messages directly with customers.
So, it can be said that Google makes it easy to manage your Google My Business page by providing a free mobile application.
5. Do I need to create a business website?
No. It is not necessary to build a website to create a Google My Business page. However, it will be good if you own a website. Just like social media accounts or pages boost the visibility of your business website, Google My Business improves organic traffic.
The good news is that Google My Business offers you to generate a simple website for free. Google does this with the help of website builder, which uses the information present in Google My Business profile. Although this website will be a simple one, you can customize it to suit your business.
6. How do I manage multiple business locations?
This is one of the frequently asked Google My Business questions. Managing multiple business locations is easy with Google My Business. Based on the number of location, there are two methods. If there are few locations, you can set up every single location under one Google login. In case, if you have ten or more locations, you can use the bulk upload tool. A bulk upload tool is a tool which helps you to upload numerous business locations at once. If you want to upload or edit your locations, you can go to Google My Business Locations.
7. What should I do if my listing is claimed by someone else?
In rare cases, you can see a “someone else has already verified this listing” message when you try to verify your Google My Business listing. If this is the case, then you have nothing to worry. GMB gives you an option to reclaim your listing. All you need to do is a request for admin rights and submit a transfer of the ownership request. Google will try to contact the existing owner to verify the transfer. If the owner does not respond within the period of seven days, then the current owner is unverified, and a verification code is sent to confirm his or her identity.
8. I am an individual practitioner. Can I set up a Google My Business listing?
Yes, it is possible. In fact, Google My Business is more popular among local business and individual practitioners such as lawyers, tutors, doctors, dentists, real estate agents, carpenters, painters, electricians or plumbers. What if there are multiple practitioners who belong to a common organization at one location? Digital marketing experts usually advise creating a listing for all the practitioners separately, in such cases. Not doing so will affect the visibility of the individual practitioners of the same organization. As the result, having a listing will not serve the purpose of owning a listing.
9. Can I skip business address on Google as I work from home?
No, you cannot leave the address field blank. However, Google My Business provides an option that resolves this issue. That is you can hide your business address by listing your business as a service area. Google gives you an option to provide the areas and cities that you cover. You can also choose to remove a service area entirely. If you are not sure about the service area listed in the GMB listing, you can go now and update the location.
10. I am shifting to a new address. How to update?
In most cases, the new address might be occupied by a business before you. If this is the case, then you must find out who the business owner is and mark the listing as closed. Closing the old listing before updating your new address is important for two reasons. One, customers of old business will not mistake you for the old business in your new address. Two, your potential customers will contact you at the correct place. Once the address is changed, your other information can also change such as a phone number, and office hours. So update all the information.
What if your new address is not occupied by a former business? Well, this makes your work easy. The only thing you need to do is update your listing.
