When it comes to local marketing, Google My Business offers many opportunities to make your company more discoverable. Almost everyone uses Google or Google Maps every day. If it is not to find a restaurant nearby, then it is to see until what time the supermarket in the village is actually open.

More accessible

Google My Business is an indispensable factor in improving your local online findability. You can place various information about your company on this application. Some of this information is as follows:

• General information about the company;
• Opening hours;
• Address data;
• Phone number;
• Link to website or contact form;
• Directions;
• Reviews.

Depending on the type of business you have, the data you can display may differ. All this information makes it much easier for potential customers to find and reach you. You can also be found in Google Maps when you have set up Google My Business.

Completely free

Signing up for Google My Business is completely free. That's a bonus when you consider that in 84% of cases, Google My Business listings are shown via exploratory searches, as opposed to the other 16% that are shown via direct searches.

Easy to manage

Google My Business is very easy to manage. If the opening hours change, you can adjust this in the settings and this will be immediately visible in Google. You can also set adjusted opening hours for specific dates, such as public holidays. If customers have a question about any of this data, they can easily find it on Google. This means they can be helped faster and you don't have to spend extra time answering these questions.

Optimize Google My Business

There are a number of options to further optimize your Google My Business account. For example, adding a cover and profile photo has a great effect on the click-through rate. According to Google, companies with photos receive 35% more clicks to their website. So go for a photo that represents your company. You can have your company verified. This way you can prevent fraud or other crimes from being committed by people who use your company's name. You can be verified in four different ways: by post, by SMS, by email and direct verification. You can do the latter when you receive this option from Google itself. In that case, your company has already been verified via Google Search Console and you can automatically request verification.

Additional information

In addition to basic information such as opening hours and address, there are a lot of things you can add to your Google My Business profile. For example, it is good to mention if you have free WiFi or are wheelchair accessible. You can also add a service area. You can then display the area in which your company is active. Are you active throughout the Netherlands? Then you can also set that, so that you can be found throughout the Netherlands on Google and Google Maps. If you sell products online, it is possible to display a selection of these in Google My Business. It takes little time to complete this, but it can persuade people to make a purchase from you. As you can see, creating a Google My Business profile offers many opportunities to be found online. Customers can find all important information about your company in one place. In addition, you can be found in Google Maps, which can ensure that more people find your company in the search results.