Alternatives to Google My Business

Alternatives to Google My Business

As you may have guessed from our previous Marketing Minute videos, Google My Business is our favourite business listing tool. However, this doesn’t mean it has to be yours.

There’s no shortage of free online business listing tools, so why not have a look at some alternatives to Google My Business in our video.

Free listing websites

A good alternative that we recommend is Bing Places for Business. We also recommend a Facebook Business page, making sure that all the details on this page match the information on your Google My Business page.

Additionally, for those of you in the UK, here are some additional free listing sites to take a look at:

  • The Sun
  • The Independent
  • Yell
  • TomTom
  • Amazon Alexa
  • FourSquare
  • Here
  • Opendi UK
  • The Mirror
  • The Evening Standard
  • NextDoor

Although these are the main ones, there are still many more that you can get onto.

There are also directories for specific trades, such as Checkatrade for tradesman. 

If you would like more information on Google My Business, you can view the rest of our videos and blogs about the listing tool here.

SEO agency Croydon 

If you need help then give us a call at Smart Cow on 020 3137 1826 or book a free consultation to discuss our SEO services and other digital marketing tools such as social media managementPay Per Click (PPC)email marketing and CRM – read more about our marketing services.

Posting on Google My Business

Adding a post on Google My Business

Google My Business allows you to share information with your clients and potential customers that find you on search engines.

This can include offers, updates, events and in the current climate COVID-19 updates. 

In our recent series of Marketing Minute videos we’ve been providing tips on optimising your Google My Business page. Here’s how you can share updates.

Log into Google My Business and select posts on the left-hand side.

The one we use the most is ‘Add Update’ and we use this to share news or a blog. To do this, upload a picture and make a summary of one of your most recent website blogs. We then add a button and select ‘learn more’ and point back to the original post with all the detail.

You can also add events and offers, both of which have very simple instructions to follow. Depending on your listing, you may also be able to add new products and price them.

As we stand now, there are also options for adding COVID-19 updates from your business to share any changes to your daily business.

You may also get an option for how people can support your business over COVID-19 with a gift card or donation link.

Make sure you keep posting updates often and this will be looked on favourably by the search engine helping you to improve your online presence.

Setting up Google My Business

If you missed our video on how to set up your Google My Business page you can watch it here.

Google My Business Reviews

Reviews on Google My Business

For the next instalment of our Smart Cow Marketing Minute video, we cover one of the key benefits of having a Google My Business page – to capture reviews.  

These reviews not only show potential clients how good you are but also help the search engine ranking in providing the right result for searches of your products or service.  

The more 5-star rankings you have the more likely potential clients, and the search engine, will rate you.  

People can review you by seeing your listing via a Google search and adding a review. Or if you log into your Google My Business page and scroll down you will see a section called ‘get more reviews’ where you can get a link to share with your clients and customers to provide feedback. 

Hopefully all feedback will be good, but whether it is or not always make sure that you respond with at least a message such as “thank you for sharing your views”, this again will help your ranking. 

Don’t be afraid, ask for as much feedback as you can.  

Remember, your prospects look for testimonials first when they search for products and services online. So, get your Google My Business page up and running so that your reviews can come rolling in.  

SEO agency Croydon 

To get started, go to Google My Business and follow the simple steps to manage your account. If you need help take a look at our previous videos or give us a call at Smart Cow on 020 3137 1826. You can also book a free consultation to discuss our SEO services and how to improve your organic rankings.   

We work with businesses on their digital marketing strategy including a mix of tactics such as social media managementPay Per Click (PPC)email marketing and CRM – read more about our marketing services

 

Set Up Google My Business

Set up Google My Business

If you’ve been watching our Smart Cow ‘Marketing Minute’ videos, you’ll have seen that our focus over the last few instalments have been optimising your Google My Business Page.

In this video we look at the basic set up of your Google My Business page.

Once your business is verified you will be able to make amends to your listing. To do this log into your Google My Business account and select ‘info’ from the left-hand column. 

Here you can update your business name, locations, area served, opening hours as you did when you set up. In light of the current situation with COVID-19, this is a good one to remember and keep on top of as it allows you to change the details that may be affected such as opening times or contact numbers if you are working remotely.

This means that when a prospect searches for you online they can swiftly see your trading hours and contact information. No need for second clicks to a website or social media account.

You can also set up links for appointments, you can add products and services opening date, business description, photos and much more. Make sure you complete as much as you can. 

There are features here where you can add special hours for holiday periods, or you can mark as closed or even remove the listing completely. 

Make sure that you keep all this information as up to date as you can as it will help with your listing. 

If you’ve missed any of the previous videos in our series, you can catch up here.