Imagine you had to book a restaurant for your friend’s as a surprise birthday party.

And you practically don’t know much about the place.

What will you do first?

“Take out your smartphone. And start searching for the best restaurants near your area.”

For instance, the “best restaurants near me” or restaurants near sector 18 Noida”.

Nobody would look for a place in Chandigarh when they reside in another place.

That’s how Google listing comes into your savior.

It helps you find the best services, restaurants, or any search query near your location along with its reviews.

Another reason why the importance of Google My Business is increasing exponentially.

You have started a retail outlet, let’s say in Noida. But, somehow are not converting well when it comes to sales.

Why is that?

It’s because your business is not visible to your target customers. So, how will they come to your outlet?

Here’s why Google My Business listing is helpful for creating an online presence for your brand.

Let’s start with a brand story that used demographic targeting as a part of their YouTube campaign.

Brand Story of Minute Maid  

I am sure you know about this brand. It is one of the well-established juice brands in Asia and many Europe countries. 

However, they were unable to get through convenience stores in a large part of Thailand.

They used the strategy to engage their customers, who in reality, are a fan of YouTube videos more than anyone.

They leveraged their passion for buying their brand even more. By creating awareness and making it possible for their users to understand the importance of their brand in their lives.

Hence, helping them to grow their marketing and sales simultaneously.

Although, the said example is nothing near to GMB listings. But, it gives the impression that one needs to understand a local market to rule there.

Now that we have understood the importance of local markets or local listings for the survival of your brand.

Here is How Google My Business is beneficial for your company as a part of your incredible local SEO journey.

1. Improves Visibility On Search Engine

As already mentioned before, Google my Business is like “Yellow pages” which makes you accessible for thousands of customers online. It’s like a free ad that shows every time a related search query is entered.

Not even customers, but various companies also rely on Google listings for finding reliable partners to do business with.

So, an impressive GMB listing will make it possible for you to reach out such an amazing customer base practically at no cost.

2. Offers Consistency Throughout The Online Space

Having a Google My Business listing gives you the much-needed credibility in the eyes of Google.

Plus, you can maintain your business profile across the search engine in terms of address, contact information, and relevant data.

3. Good For Impressing Your Customers Right Away

Google My Business helps to improve the first impression of any brand in the eyes of their customers.

This is possible because Google allows uploading photos and products of your store. You have complete control over the things you wish to share for making an impactful first impression.

4. Analyze Your Position 

GMB gives you the opportunity to analyze whether or not things are going into your favor.

It gives you the desired analytics and data that can help you change your local SEO marketing strategies.

5. Management of Online Reviews

Google My Business listings enable your customers to write reviews about the services or products of your company.

It is a perfect opportunity to fix anything from the customer’s point of view. And make it work for your company in terms of brand’s recognition and conversions.

6. Opportunity To Directly Engage With Your Customers

Using GMB listings, you get a chance to share posts stating about new offers or anything related to your brand.

Plus, you can add extensions to enable your customers to reach out directly without having to look for your business website first.

But, the question still remains is, how Google My Business helps to improve your local SEO rankings.

It is confirmed that GMB uses a range of factors to determine the rankings of any business. However, the most important ones are listed below.

7. Relevance

It determines whether or not your business profile fits into the criteria of the searcher’s.

So, being clear about your business services and products will help Google to identify as the product of desire.

8. Distance

Distance is like the primary ranking factor when it comes to local SEO rankings. As mentioned above, you can’t rank for Chandigarh, if your store is in Noida.

So, ensure to keep your address right or else you might lose your potential customers to any competitor brand.

9. Prominence

It includes a lot of factors such as reviews, events, unique content. If your website has a lot of quality links, then your GMB listing has more chances to be shown in the top 3 locations in SERP rankings.

So, keep your listing updated at all times.

The main part of the article has focused on the benefits and other factors related to ranking higher on local rankings.

But, how to go about it is another challenging task.

However, we have enlisted some of the tips and tricks to help you optimize your Google My Business listing for magnificent local SEO rankings.

Checkout Google My Business of Google Local Listing Optimization Tips

1. Enter Your Data Correctly 

One of the best ways to mark your presence online is to post correct data about your business whenever creating a listing.

This will help to indicate that your business is completely genuine and that your business is the solution of so many searcher’s search queries.

There is a thing called NAP, whenever GMB listing is talked about. It means “Name, Address, Phone Number”. You must be consistent with these required criteria to help Google understand that your business does exist.

2. Keep Your Business Hours Accurate

It is essential to notify your customers about your availability on normal working days and social holidays. It gives your customers a feeling of confidence regarding your brand.

After all, you are saving so much of the time and money of your customers.

3. Include Photos

Photos are a way to tell your customers that you are a real brand. And that you have a physical location from where you conduct your business.

Plus, it is an opportunity for you to lure in the customers by publishing relevant photos that have a higher customer engaging ability.

4. Manage Reviews

Online reviews are extremely important nowadays. It gives other customers other than the existing ones an idea of what’s beneficial for them.

Plus, replying regularly to every type of review gives an idea that you care about your customers a lot.

To wrap it up, claiming your GMB or Google My Business is the primary step towards an incredible SEO journey this and the coming next few years.

So, make sure to get it right in terms of target keywords, and mentioning the right location and name for your business.

And eventually grab more deals, leads, and ultimately conversions.

Remember this famous Kitkat Ad that made lakhs of online users go crazy.

They smartly used the concept of the life of a doctor and asking them to take a break with their product. And feel the happiness and relaxation that is usually missing in their busy lives.

A dream sequence that everyone craves for. 

An appropriate ad that helped the brand to revive their relationship with the customers. 

Marketing nowadays is not about the product or services. It’s about the user.

Do you service or product fills the missing link?

If yes, then only you can prosper in today’s marketing world. Or else you will have to face the heat.

And enters a marketing methodology that is specifically created to drive visitors or customers in the hope of converting them into potential buyers.

Inbound Marketing

A strategy that is all about making searchers find the answers to their queries organically.

It’s like a person poking you every now and then about buying a house in their society.

And you find a house and somehow reach a destination on your own.

What will you choose?

I am pretty sure the latter one. After all who likes all those messages or calls persuading you to do a thing that you otherwise are looking for, but somehow feel agitated as if they are forcing you to do that.

Studies advocate the use of inbound marketing strategies that have more than 4% conversion rates. 

But, before going ahead and discussing why is this type of marketing tactic is essential for your business, let’s consider two primary elements of inbound marketing strategy.

– What Are Your Expectations?

Look at the strategies as a part of improving your brand’s credibility. If your brand becomes popular among users and searchers, there will be no looking back at all.

Be clear about what you are looking for.

Strategies that focus on customers take some time for driving engagements. But, once you pass the first stage, people are going to notice you for sure.

Hence, more projects because of the successful word-of-mouth marketing campaign led by your early users.

– Are You Looking For Short Term Or Long-term Success?

If you are looking for short-term results, then inbound marketing might be frustrating for you. 

Because these marketing tactics take time to generate results as compared to outbound marketing practices. And thinking you can reach thousands of buyers overnight is a joke.

Inbound marketing strategies definitely take time to take off. But, once they do, your company will be counting numbers every other day.

What Are The Benefits of Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is all about reaching the right place at the right time. Hence, significantly increasing leads, conversions, and eventually ROI. 

Building your brand using inbound marketing strategies helps in a number of ways. 

For instance, the following are some of the benefits of using inbound marketing strategies. 

– Acts A Bridge To Fill The Gap

The market today is filled with companies that work more for earning profits. On the contrary, customers want to choose a brand that offers a relationship based on trust.

If the trust factor is missing, customers are more likely to go with the brands that induce the trust factor.

And inbound marketing strategy does the same for your brand. It fills the gap by enhancing the trust factors for your brand.

– Stops The Business From Being Too Salesy

Forcing customers by continuously sending them signals that need to buy your service or product is a thing of the past.

Customers choose the companies that appear on different search channels or results. It helps them to understand the authenticity of the brand as the signals are coming from different channels instead of one.

According to insights shared in an article published by Hubspot, here are some things that will help to analyze inbound marketing strategies better.

Inbound Method in Marketing

Inbound Method For Conversions

Inbound Method For Services

Source- https://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing

Once the basic foundation is set, let’s move on to the marketing channels that form the part of inbound marketing strategies.

These include- 

. Search Engine Optimization

This is probably the most common type of inbound marketing that marketers have been using since ages now.

But, the technique is not tricking the search bots. Rather, making yourself accessible in terms of value to the customers so that they click onto your websites naturally.

. PPC

I know you must be thinking that I have gone completely mad by adding PPC to this list. But, there is no doubt that PPC is an inbound marketing strategy.

Reason being, people find these ads only after looking for a search query. Hence, the results are completely organic.

. Content Marketing

It’s is also one of the important marketing tactics when it comes to inbound marketing. Publishing unique content completely for the sake of users or customer’s benefit will help to improve your brand’s identity.

Hence, conversions and ROI.  

. Social Media

Thinking of Facebook?

Well, social media is not limited to Facebook only. Rather, a lot of social media channels are helping different types of brands to excel in terms of customer engagement.

For instance, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, Twitter are some of the other channels that you can explore for your brand. 

Other than these, LinkedIn, Reddit, and Quora is taking a step forward in making the lives of millions of users easier than before. 

. Landing Pages

PPC ads are helping in generating leads.

But, in reality, it is the magic of landing pages that convert leads into buyers.

So, it is essential to make a clean, and valuable landing page that influences visitors to buy your product. 

Conclusion

In the midst of finding a foothold in the online market, inbound marketing is something that will help to shape your brand where customers are put in the driving seat. 

Use inbound marketing to put across your brand’s mission, motto, or idea of doing something in simpler but effective words. 

Hence, enabling your brand to engage customers 24/7.