Let’s talk about a powerful, completely free way to vastly increase your online marketing presence!

It’s 2019, and Google has been the most popular online search engine on the planet for about 15 years.  They aren’t slowing down, either, working every day to come up with new ways to improve searches.  And, luckily for us, to make it easier for businesses to get found!  Which brings us to Google My Business!

Pull up a tab right now in your browser, open Google and search for Freedom Creative Solutions in Winston-Salem.  To the right of the search results, you’ll see a box called the Business Profile.  You can see our name, phone number, address, website link, product photos, business hours, reviews, busiest times of the day, descriptions, blog posts and much more!  We can manage every bit of it, including events, specials, and review responses!  That’s a very powerful set of tools, and that’s not even the best part!

The real benefit to being part of Google My Business is that your local search rankings will see some love!  The process of creating and maintaining a GMB Account proves that your business exists and is active.  If you think about it, it’s a pretty clever tactic to ensure that Google’s Search Engine has the right information and details about your company. There’s also been industry research on local search factors, which shows how GMB is giving companies more oompf in the local searches than almost any other single source!

And yes, all of this is still completely free!

Why wait?  Search for your business name right now and see what comes up! Most of the time, any business name search is going to turn up a box with a Google My Business Profile.  You just need to grab your own!  You might see your organization’s profile just waiting for you to claim it!  If not, so long as you have a Google Account, you can build it from scratch in about 10 minutes. Head to this link (https://www.google.com/business/) and get started!

The instructions make setting this up very easy, and Freedom Creative Solutions is happy to help you if you get stuck.  In fact, we’re going to give you a few quick suggestions right now!

First of all, be sure all your information is right. Keeping your information correct across the web is always super important, and we’d suggest making GMB the template you use on other sites and directories. (You can read more about those at this link!)  But if you’re just now building your Business Profile, you’ll have to verify your company’s information with Google.  That usually means a postcard, which can take about a week to arrive.  If you alter your GMB address, phone, or business name afterward, you’ll probably have to reverify, which is a pain.

Just as important, though: keep your profile active!  Try to log in at least once a week, just to show you’re awake and engaged!  Google allows users to suggest information updates, which you’ll need to accept or reject.  When you get reviews, good or bad, reply to each and every one of them.  It allows you to interact with your audience and stay on top of complaints.  And lastly, make posts!  GMB isn’t a social media platform, but making a post once a week has been shown to help search results.  You can also link your social media profiles into your GMB, so it’s a win-win!

If you’re interested in other ways to boost your online presence, stay tuned to this newsletter!  We’ll be talking about how to create posts next time!  You can also contact Freedom Creative Solutions at 336-602-1901 and get more strategies to improve your marketing, online and otherwise!