Powerful, Free Advertising for your Milwaukee Area Local Business
Local businesses across America spend billions every year on Pay Per Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but one of the most powerful online tools to promote your business is free.
100% free.
No cost.
None.
When you search online and see listings that show up in the organic search results with a map, and business reviews, phone numbers, hours of operation and addresses this is a Google My Business listing and it’s absolutely free. Used properly, it’s also very powerful. Research shows that the vast majority of consumers today search online for local services, and furthermore, when looking for a local business, over half of those searches will result in a visit to a physical store within one day. This means that if you don’t have a properly leveraged GMB listing, you’re missing out on free traffic to your business.
Using a Bigger Lever
Have you ever heard the expression ‘Use a bigger hammer’? Well, when talking about making the most of your GMB listing, you need to use a bigger lever. Most business owners register the basic information on their GMB listing and leave it at that. This is a serious mistake and it doesn’t even come close to fully utilizing the power of a Google My Business listing.
There are many ways to powerfully leverage your GMB listing. First, it can be a turbocharger for your Pay Per Click campaigns. Have you seen PPC ads with extra information at the bottom, like links to specific pages, location information, phone number and reviews? All of this information comes from your GMB listing. By adding these extensions (at no extra charge!) to your PPC ads your ad takes up more space on the page, making it more noticeable as well as offering customers searching for your business more information. Ads structured like this get a higher click through rate than ads without this extra info and page space, resulting in more bang for your PPC buck.
You’ve got 2 seconds! Go!
Getting consumers in your area to view your GMB listing is just the first step. Research shows that the average person will look at your listing for 2 seconds before deciding whether or not to move on. If they don’t see what they are looking for, you’ve lost them to your competition.
While complete and thorough GMB listings, as discussed above, are a foundational starting point, there’s a lot more you can do to make your listing stand out. First, you can add posts. These are like mini ads or tweets about your business and the products or services you offer. You can even get more attention by adding images and a call to action in the form of a ‘Learn More’ or similar link, which will lead them to your website. And of course, your site is optimized to convert those visitors, right? If it’s not, better talk to us about that too.
You can even direct consumers to specific pages on your site, so if you’re hosting a special event like an in-house seminar, or a limited time offer, you can direct visitors to the specific page on your site where they can learn more and enter your sales funnel. In addition, while no one is really sure if the Google ranking algorithms work this way (Google isn’t telling) there is some evidence that regular GMB posts, just like regular blog posts, can improve your site’s page ranking.
Earn their trust before they ever walk through your door
If you’ve ever seen or used a GMB listing, you know that customers can post online reviews and that the business will get a rating out of 5 stars from customers who leave reviews. With proven impacts on search rankings, consumer trust and click-through rates, getting lots of good reviews should be a priority. As the saying goes, ‘Nothing succeeds like success’. When consumers see that you have many satisfied customers, they are far more likely to do business with you. And it’s easier than you think to get those reviews. 68% of satisfied customers will leave a review if you simply ask nicely.
But there’s more…
At Local Web Concepts, we’re experts in leveraging your Google My Business listing to drive more traffic to your Milwaukee area business. The above suggestions are just some of the strategies we can help you implement to make your GMB listing a powerful and free tool to generate more local business.
