How to Use Google for Local Business

00:00 Welcome to another session of Smarter Business Tips at 10, except it's 10:10 today, so ... Today a few technical issues. So today's session is Play the Game with Google. Google give us business owners a massive opportunity to play the game with them, and I find a lot of business owners are not taking advantage of that, and some business owners have done some things, but it's always in the attention to detail. So it's Peter Butler from Smarter Websites here. So you should be able to see my screen of my location of the business. Now, not only that, you can see it's not just my business name, it's actually the category and the tags, the keywords that I want to be known for. So website design and SEO. And even just hovering over it, you can see that we've got massive reviews there. So that makes a massive difference to people doing business with you. It's a given. The bottom line is, make sure that you've (1) got a business listing, and it's really easy to check. Just go to ... and you can do a check yourself by going to, and use incognito, I'm a Chrome fan, so my business listing is here, so I'm using Chrome Incognito, all I've done is a search for my business, just put in my business name there, and see what Google shows of your business. So do that as soon as we've finished this video.
01:34 What is Google showing the world of your business? It's really simple to check. Now there are so many things that are available within the business listing. So you can get reviews. You can make posts. I've done other videos on this as well, but not only does your Google business listing show up in Maps, this is what the world will see when you've got it configured correctly.
02:01 So you've got this panel to the right, which is called, a knowledge panel. If your website's configured properly, you should be able to see your business website, plus multiple pages of your website. And with knowledge graph and other website configurations, you should be able to see your Facebook business page, any other local directory listings you have, and I would highly recommend you get a LinkedIn company page.
02:35 Again, it's just that instant showcase of your website when somebody is doing their due diligence on your business. If you're vying for people's business, it's so important to make sure that that initial impression is up there.
02:52 So you can see that there's 22 Google reviews we've done. If you go to my LinkedIn profile, you'll see I've got 45 or 47 LinkedIn recommendations, we've got a whole bunch of Facebook reviews. You can see those here. True Local reviews, so this is what people see when they do their due diligence on our business. And then that also affects the way we show on Google maps. So if somebody's looking for another local business, it's quite likely that our business is going to stand out.
03:27 Now why is that icon red as opposed to these blue ones, because obviously I've searched for that business. But you've got to remember that I'm doing this search in incognito mode, so you see up here, I'm not logged in. So it's important to do that, the bottom line is, what does the world see of your business in Google. And as we say, play the game with Google and Google will play the game with you.
03:52 So that's a wrap for today. Just a nice, short quickie. Do a check on your business listing. Type your business listing as it's registered. Actually before we close, there's something else called NAP and it's not have a nap, not have a sleep. Name, address, and phone number. And it's one of the first things we do when we're SEOing a client. So your NAP, your name of your business, your address, and your phone number is really important to be consistent across all platforms. So if we ... And there's phone call ... And if we go over to here so you can see the way my address and phone number is displayed. It's really important that that be consistent across all platforms. Across Facebook, True Local, all of your platforms and it's down to the point where if you're staying in a unit and in one particular instance online you've got it listed as Unit 5, such and such address and then on another listing you've got it down as U5, then Google will not be able to distinguish the difference between that. So NAP protocol is really important that it be consistent right down to the comma. It really makes a massive difference for businesses that have an address listed.
05:21 So that's a final tip on that I'm going to just check and see if I can see any comments, anything. I'm not able to see that while I'm live, which is incredibly frustrating. However, I will respond to any comments, questions, after this live gets shut off. So if you think a friend or a colleague will benefit from this, I'd really appreciate a thumbs up. By giving me a thumbs up, that's also [inaudible 00:05:48] spread the word. It helps to spread this out on Facebook and I certainly believe in giver's gain, so the more you help me, the more you will get helped yourself.
05:57 So that's Peter Butler from Smarter Websites here. Go and work smarter.

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1 thought on “How to Use Google for Local Business”

  1. As someone working from home, I had been afraid to list my business on Google. But I’m glad it allows me to not be so specific. I live in a gated community, so I’ve only listed the street address instead of my house number.

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