The Importance of Google Maps For Business
Brick-and-mortar store owners have difficulties in attracting customers to visit their store. As you can guess, when customers are completely keen on something, they are easily put off if they are faced with the problem of traveling.
Meanwhile, a simple address is unlikely to always work for those who are not good at navigation. Consequently, when customers are prevented from visiting the store, no sales are made for your business.
So, when customers Google your business, what comes up? Can they see an appealing display with a full of information including your detailed location, address, hours of operation, phone number, a link to your website, and customer reviews?
Unlike SMEs and enterprises with big offices that need no effort to attract people to their locations, small business has to address themselves. Overall, eing found on Google Maps is a must-have to driving traffic to the business of all sizes.
This blog will give you amazing tips to take advantage of Google Maps.
First, let me show you the background of how customers use navigation apps.
An In-depth Survey About Using Behaviors With Navigation Apps
A new survey conducted by The Manifest, the business news and how-to website surveyed more than 500 smartphone owners to understand how people are relying on technology more to get from point A to B.
- Over three-fourths (77%) of participants frequently use navigation apps.
- One-quarter (25%) of respondents utilize their favorite navigation app as they trust that it provides them with better directions.
- Over one-third (36%) of respondents utilize navigation apps before leaving their location; 34%use them en route, and 30% utilize them not only prior to traveling but also en route equally.
- An enormous number of smartphone owners (87%) utilize navigation apps for driving directions mostly.
25–34-year-olds accounted for the largest percentage of respondents in the survey at 28%. This generation has become one of the most important spending groups, therefore, it’s important to reach them through these navigation apps. Other groups joining in the survey consisted of 35 to 44-year-olds at 21%, 45 to 54-year-olds at 18%, 18 to 24-year-olds at 15%, and those 55 and over at 17%.
Why Is Google Maps Prevalent, Instead Of Other Navigation Apps?
Google Maps is undoubtedly the most widespread navigation app according to the survey. 67% of smartphone owners say they use Google Maps most frequently, nearly 6x more people compared to the second-most popular app Waze (12%).
Google Maps becomes supreme between navigation apps mostly owing to the amount of information it offers. Google Maps’ enormous data permits it to offer better directions than most other GPS apps.
Google Maps is likely to be a 360-degree camera across the world to document a street-level perspective of areas both metropolitan and rural. “It’s the internet and knows everything” (Zack Drew). For example, he explains how Google Maps features the outlines of houses, sheds, and footpaths in even the smallest rural towns — data it collects through satellite and aerial imagery.
How Google Maps Helps Small Business Attract More Customers
The power of Google Maps for business is not kind of simple that your business locations are displayed and a guide with voice is shown when customers turn on GPS. Merchants can get a lot more thanks to Google My Business.
Google My Business is a free tool to manage how your business appears on Google Maps.
Now, the very first step is to create an account. Log in your Google account and visit here and follow the instructions.
Claim Your Listing With Google My Business
Previously called Google Places, Google My Business enables you to claim the listing which helps your business shown up in Google search results.
Importantly, Google My Business is available for any kinds of business (excluding certain inappropriate establishments), and it displays your business’ useful information like the establishment’s address, hours of operation, and customer ratings.
Specifically, Google is more bound to take your business seriously if you have a complete profile. It is not about the size of your business as the more information you provide to Google, the better you’ll rank in Maps search results. Therefore, small business has an equal opportunity to access customers compared to the large one.
It is a big mistake when several businesses only claim their listing and then stop there, ignoring to provide complete data. As a result, they achieve less visibility, as well as with less than satisfaction rankings on Google Maps.
Therefore, it is imperative for you to add the room number, suite, or subdivision designation, as well as full nine-digit zip code, and any additional information which can make your business easier to look for.
Moreover, you should eliminate any extra spaces and other formatting errors seeing that even the slightest mistakes may influence your Google Maps ranking.
Keep in mind this note if your business has a physical storefront or location which serves a wider area (like pizza delivery services or package carriers), you need to specify all of the service areas in your Google My Business profile.
Plus, list the towns or cities where you serve, for instance, or you can select to detail a geographical radius of service. You also have to demonstrate whether or not you serve customers at your primary location in order to avoid walk-ins turning up at your business.
Following your business profile is filled out entirely, you ought to verify your Google My Business listing. This process can last several weeks because Google generally mails a postcard (with a unique PIN) to the physical address given in your Google My Business profile (even though Google sometimes lets you verify ownership by phone).
Optimize Your Categories & Business Introduction
Firstly, if your business operates in numerous fields, you can miss out on better search results because you only choose one primary business category. Because this incomplete information in your Google My Business listing is likely to minimize your optimization opportunities.
Although you are solely required to select the main category while creating your Google My Business listing, it doesn’t mean that you needn’t consist of extra categories that are equally related to your firm.
This is particularly important when your business provides numerous relevant offerings. To illustrate, a Website designer is your company’s primary category; however, you are also supporting categories like internet marketing service, graphic designer, and e-commerce service.
Meanwhile, the operation way of Google is to provide users with business suggestions according to the information you give in your listing.
Hence, if you enter the wrong category or not enough related categories, your business has fewer opportunities to appear among Google’s selected recommendations for searchers.
So, remember that the more appropriate and thorough information you provide to Google, the better optimized your Google My Business listing can be.
Additionally, it’s also the reason why you need to write an apparent and concise business summary, followed by the products or services you offer, and your competitive advantage compared to competitors.
When you skip this step, you reduce your optimization potential. There are several tips to “paint a picture for your customers”, you can search for them here. Don’t waste space on blah sentences such as “We’re a cake store” since Google My Business is prime marketing real estate.
Finally, while you’re enabled to attach links of relevant pages on your website in your Introduction, not use links or keywords stuffing to avoid being denied by Google. Using applicable keywords in your introduction is good provided that your content is well-organized, helpful, and appealing to searchers.
Optimize Your Google My Listing by Adding Images
Google My Business turns Google Maps into a visual platform where companies can display their essential information with photos. For example, as Magenest JSC, businesses with listings which consist of images are more appealing than listings without them. Including photos is an effective method to extremely make your business stand out among the rest of businesses, besides being yet another chance for optimization.
According to WordStream, adding photos in your Google My Business listing is about a lot more “than looking pretty” because the images themselves may be optimized to improve your visibility. With the help of third-party apps, you easily add metadata to your images, which make them easier for customers to look for.
Moreover, as you can easily see, there are reviews situated below the images and business information. Whereas it’s still not clear about user reviews’ influence on the Google Maps search algorithm, businesses without reviews will find it difficult to struggle against other companies’ with several reviews. That being said, it’s important for you to request and include reviews in your Google My Business listing.
Remember that reviews can’t be shown with your Google Maps listing until you have gained at least five of them. You can consider some following tips concerning reviews offered by Vertical Response, which support you to monitor and reply to reviews.
Cost-effective local marketing
Google My Business allows the business to promote themselves to their potential customers in a given locality and costs much lesser than traditional advertising options.
Hence, showing up in Google Maps help you make use of free digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) opportunities, which can support your business to grow.
Become successful with Store Locator for Magento 2
Understanding the importance of Google Maps for your business, especially small- or medium- scale, Magenest introduces Store Locator Magento 2 to create a particular page to list your stores with Google Maps display and allow customers to find the nearest stores in seconds.
Connecting your physical stores to the eCommerce website, your business can benefit from:
- Create and manage multiple store locations.
- Provide a filterable store finder for customers to find your store location.
- Store locations have rich details and directions.
- Select featured or available products at individual stores.
- Modern and mobile-responsive UI/UX design.
Don’t hesitate to discover Magenest Store Locator right now, consequently, let’s expect a higher number of customers coming to your stores as soon as possible!
Conclusion
Small businesses need to take advantage of all available resources to boost up their sales and Googe Maps is one of the powerful tools. Fortunately, Magento Store Locator by Magenest can help you to integrate your locations on Google Maps to your store easily.
If you have any questions, just comment in the section below.
