7 minutes per week to Google Business Profile Success

By Corey Hinde | SEO New Zealand

There is no doubt that ranking higher on Google Business Profile gets your business more leads and online attention locally.

In fact, we think that for some types of businesses, your Google Business Profile could now be MORE important than your actual website!

However – do you have the time needed to work on it each week?

We thought it would be useful to share with you a super-streamlined process that we designed for a friend who had very little time, DID want the results offered from ranking higher on Google, but had no budget to hire us to do the work for them.

Because being up the top of Google is a good place to be for your business!

So, the goal here is to use a super streamlined checklist, each week, in under 10 minutes, that will help elevate you to the top of Google.

There is ONE MAGIC TRICK here though that you have to be aware of…

That trick is….

Consistency.

This checklist will ONLY work, if you do it week in, week out, and pretty much never stop.

Lock out a time on your weekly calendar, and complete this list every week like a robot. It won’t take long, and the impact on your business could be large!

Okay, here is the list:

1️⃣ Check your listing for changes each week.

Google will make automatic changes to your listings.

This can be automatic or from suggestions that other Google users make.

What we have found is that keeping your listing current – ensuring the services for example (as shown below) are accurate, will help keep you ranking for the right keywords.

You’ll easily see what needs doing, the changed services or added services are coloured orange. Simply click on the update (pencil) idon, and either keep or delete them.

2️⃣ Add a Post.

This is essential.

It’s very hard to rank high on Google Business without using the Post feature.

There are loads of things you can use the Post feature for, but the main point here is you need to post SOMETHING each week.

If you want some ideas for what to post here, then watch this video we shot recently.

We have around 47 post ideas in that video.

For our clients, we’ll usually use a posting cycle like this:

Basic info post, with the main keyword for that business, and a simple link to the website “contact us” page, and then we’ll add the CALL option to the post.
Review Post – we’ll screenshot a review from a client, and use that as a post.
Industry Updates post – we’ll add something new in their industry, or some news, or a new product.
Service post – we’ll write about a service the business provides, add a photo, and a link to that service page on the website.
Photo posts – just any photos that exist from the business – with a simple “call” option on the post.

We’ll usually use the “Call” call to action option on the post feature, so people can easily reach out to the business.

3️⃣ Check and reply to any reviews

4️⃣ Check messages

Messages are now being used by customers more often.

They’ll simply find a business on Google Maps or Google Search – and message them.

These will come through as a message on the Google Business Profile dashboard, an email into the linked Gmail account, and also now on your Google Maps app if you have that on your phone.

So… you really cannot miss them!

Just be sure to check them, reply, engage etc… these are exactly the same as a person calling your business on the phone. They need to be treated as such.

5️⃣ Add Photos

Adding photos to Google listings is proving a very useful tactic as well.

What we suggest you do is simply download any new images from your business social media accounts to your laptop or desktop, and then upload them directly to your Google Business Profile.

Really fast, and really effective.