How To Setup Google My Business Listings – 001

We’re super excited to be sharing this first episode with everyone!  We’ve been operating a local service business since 1995, and have tried all sorts of marketing – from direct mail and telemarketing, to commercials, feet-on-the-street canvasing, and even broadcast faxing (anyone remember that?!).

As the years passed, and as Google became a household name, our energies shifted primarily to online and digital marketing…and we got pretty good at it.

Fast forward to 2018, and we now have a separate business, Intrycks, which is solely focused on providing digital marketing and SEO to local service businesses, like ourselves.

Which leads us to today, and the launch of our new weekly show “Local SEO Tactics”!  We’re excited, and nervous, to be offering up our thoughts, opinions, strategies, and marketing tactics with this new platform.  Our goal is to empower you to take action and improve your exposure online, to dominate your local market and establish a steady stream of new customers for your business.

Our first episode jumps right in to the Google arena, as we discuss the importance of being listed in the Google My Business (GMB) directory.  We find that most businesses see a 50% increase in the volume of new leads when their GMB is properly setup and ranking high.

We’ll walk you through how to get registered, how to list your business, and how to verify your business with Google.

Check out the show notes below for resource links, guides, and a link to watch the episode in video format!

Thanks for checking our our first episode!

If you want to dig even deeper, check out the brand-new course Dominate GMB, which will be launching soon!  We’ll be talking more about the course later, but you can signup for the wait list now (and get a special bonus).

Thanks for Listening!

Here is the transcript for Episode 1 – How to Setup Google My Business

Jesse: Hey everyone, Jesse Dolan and Bob Brennan here kicking off our first episode today on
the show Local SEO Tactics, and we’re going to start off by talking our favorite topic,
which is going to make you a lot of money in your business and really help you grow, the
local Google Map packs.

Bob: Yep, and it’s also known as Google My Business.

Jesse: Correct.

Bob: Yep. In the past it was just Google Maps but it’s critical you get this done in your
business. If this isn’t one of the first things you work on, it’s going to take a while for you
to get any results off of anything off the internet. It’s really akin to – if I can harken back
to the old days – if you took a Yellow Pages ad, it’s like having, if you’re in the top of the
Map pack for service based business, it’s really like having a full page ad in the Yellow
Pages and literally being on the first page for let’s say plumbing or carpet installation or
anything like that. It’s critical you’re at the top. From our experience what we’ve seen is
it’s probably 50% of the calls from most of our service based clients that we have
involving websites and web optimization. It can mean a lot of money one way or
another and it’s really not that hard to do. It’s really a great place to start.

Jesse: And it’s free.

Bob: It’s free, yeah.

Jesse: And I think just everybody to clarify if you don’t know what the Map pack is, if you do a
local search for example like carpet installation in your home town, you’ll see some
sponsored ads usually at the very top of Google. Those are the paid ads. The pay per
click, usually going to see three of those. Directly under that you’re going to see a map.
Usually with some local icons like an A, B and C or a one, two and three listing. That’s
referred to as the Map pack.

Bob: Statistics say 54% of Google My Business listings go unclaimed. Basically if you have a
website or a business and you don’t claim it, it’s 54%, that’s half.

Jesse: A lot of times these will be created automatically. People might not even realize it.
Sometimes Google will screen scrape this from Yellow Pages directory or somewhere
else where you might have your business listed. Sometimes it’s easy as just claiming the
existing listing. Sometimes you have to add your business and start from the ground up.

Bob: I would add to that too that so 54% of the people don’t claim their Google My Listings
and there’s another percentage that aren’t really claiming them properly and so they’re
not really showing up where they should.

Jesse: This is even more important now with mobile device. Even a year or two ago showing up
first in Google just natural, organic results was extremely important. Now if you’re not
showing up in this Map pack via the Google My Business listings, you’re really missing
out because a lot of people won’t even get past seeing that on their phone or on their
device. Let’s take a step back and let’s talk about maybe some of the methods we’ve
used.

Bob: Our business, we work in the office equipment world and basically we started out with
eventually we had four telemarketers and two full-time salespeople and that worked
fine probably for six, seven years but then as we approached 2000, more and more
people were not answering their phone. They were harder to get a hold of. So then you
got voicemail and so we just telemarketed more and left more voicemails. Basically that
is a push method of selling and today’s world is more a pull. We’re consumers, we know
where to go to get the information. Everybody goes to Google and it’s really a matter of
being there right in the front and center. Anybody can build a website but if you’re not
on the corner of Main and First, you’re going to be hard pressed to get business.
And so the Google My Business is really a simple way to get your toe in the door so to
speak for that. And actually there’s a lot of businesses out there don’t even have a
website and they’ve listed on Google My Business and they’ve been fortunate enough to
get to the top and which is great. You’re not going to stay there very long but it’s a great
start. You’ve got to reinforce that with a website because again, more consumers are
wanting to know a little bit more about you. But again it’s going to get you 50% of the
business that you could if you’re at the top.

Jesse: Yeah, and we manage hundreds of websites for customers all across the country and it’s
pretty amazing to see some websites that can be having some pretty good results,
getting some great leads for customers that do not have a Google My Business listing in
the Google Map pack and as soon as we engage in one of those and get them verified,
the results are very dramatic. They can double their amount of leads and the amount of
customers and this is especially applicable to again local service businesses. If you put
yourself of the context of the customer that’s searching for your product or your service,
more particularly when they’re looking for something, they’re looking for something. It’s
not like the old days like we said with telemarketing where you could interrupt
somebody and you could tell them what you do and they could put a magnet on the
fridge or a Post-it note on your cubicle or whatever and remember you for when they
need that product or service.

Nowadays we don’t want to be bugged by that. What we want to do is we want to own
the process and control it and when I need a plumber or a carpet installer, I go to
Google and I search for one and I’m going to pick who I want to engage with based off
my own research and my own criteria. I’m not going to go to who contacted me before
and said that they were awesome. Nowadays you’ve got to be ready to operate at that
speed, you’ve got be able to be found where people are looking because they’re not
going to go off the magnet that’s on the fridge or the Post-it note that’s in the cube
anymore.

Bob: And I’d run another dynamic by you as it relates to Google My Business and again
Google Map pack. We were talking about Map pack, we’re talking about the top three
’cause Google only delivers the top three on that search. Now you can explore and open
it up and see more but it’s usually those top three and if you’re not in that top three,
you’re numbers drop dramatically. It’s half, each one drops in half. Now, that being said,
let me ask you this question. Would you want to be at the top or would you want to
have the most reviews with the best, with the most stars?

Jesse: That is a good question.

Bob: That brings a different dynamic to things. As consumers subconsciously we see one,
two, three but then oh hey this guy has six stars or 10 stars. I’m calling him first. Even
though he’s not at the top. That’s a whole ‘nother episode we’ll probably cover in terms
of reviews and whatnot. There again, it’s just a different dynamic that you’re going to
have to learn, you’re going to have to develop. Take the time to do it. It’s not rocket
science. It’s just another thing you have to learn as a business owner. But it’s worth
every minute you spend on it.

Jesse: And I think it’s important to know too, it’s changing. Like you said, we’ll talk about
reviews, how those are relevant and other factors that really make it relevant to how
you’re showing up in the rankings for the Map pack and what makes people convert. To
click on your listing to then become a customer or a prospect. But the important part to
note is this always changing. We’re covering this in the first episode of this show which
the show is Local SEO Tactics. The focus of this show is to get your website to rank high
so you can attract customers, convert them into new business. Can’t underscore enough
the fact that the Google My Business listing and being the Map pack is the number one
thing we think for SEO benefits for your website in converting customers. That’s why
we’re going to give it a lot of attention here to kick things off.

And check back in a month, in a quarter, in year, there’s going to be more episodes on
this topic because Google will be changing it. We were getting ready for the show today
running up some examples and we found some new stuff just in the last day or two that
Google’s showing now. Some of these Map packs and the snippets that weren’t there a
few days ago at least in our market. Google changes very, very fast. The entire industry,
we’re always playing catch up as business owners for the service businesses or for
marketing agencies trying to figure out what the next thing is. Stay tuned today, stay
tuned in future episodes, we’re going to keep hammering on this topic because right
now in today’s world Google Map packs are the king.

To claim your business, find out if it’s already out there to be claimed or to set yourself
from scratch, you’re going to want to go to business.google.com and it’s free, it’s pretty
easy to set up your account. You just click, there’s going to be a big green button that
says start, you click that. It’s going to walk you through a few steps, you’re going to
enter in the name of your business, your address, your phone number, enter in some
real quick information, category of your business, things of that nature and you’re off to
the races.

Google doesn’t just let anybody go and create a listing. That wouldn’t be fair. You could
sabotage other businesses, you can copy other businesses, you can do all kinds of stuff.
So they have to verify that you’re an actual business, a brick and mortar location, you
can’t just rip off 18 of these for any idea that you have. At the end of this process to
verify your listing, Google’s going to send you a postcard in the mail with a pin number.
Usually takes three to seven days roughly to get that postcard. You’re going to want to
check your mail every day, kind of looks like junk mail, especially if it’s coming to your
business address.

Bob: It’s easy to throw out.

Jesse: Yeah, super easy to throw out. I would say actually a couple tips on this from our own
experience, let everybody in your office know that this thing is coming because it looks
like junk mail. It can be mistaken very, very easily and end up in the round file cabinet
over in corner there. And you’re going to have to start the process over again for
sending the postcard and it’s going to take another three to seven days. So watch for
that in the mail. You’re going to open that up, it’s going to have a pin number. You gotta
go back to Google, they’ll have instructions on the postcard, enter in that pin number
and then your business is verified. It literally takes minutes before it’s live on Google.
You can probably go get a cup of coffee, come back, do a Google search and find your
business online all of a sudden. Cool part about that is if you find it online, everybody
else is going to find it online too.

Bob: If you can open a checking account, you can fill this out. And so there’s really no excuse.
Yeah, don’t be intimidated this is not difficult technology at all. We’ll have a link for all
that, right?

Jesse: Yeah, you know what? We’ll record a quick screen cast of how to do this step by step.
We’ll put a link to it in the show notes so everybody can check that out and follow along.
It’s super easy, it’s probably going to take three to five minutes as long as you know your
address and your phone number and all that kind of business information. And then
again you’re going to want to wait three to seven days after they send the postcard to
get that and wrap it up.

I guess one important thing we should let everybody know is you’re not going to see the
Google Map pack or these Google My Business listings for every search term. It’s still, I
wouldn’t call it an exact mystery but Google doesn’t show it for everything. Some of the
most popular things, plumbers, home services, some of the things that are going to be
the most popular searches or services people are looking for you’re going to see the
Map pack. If you get a little bit more obscure like maybe drone repair, bowling alley
resurfacing.

Bob: Right, right, but that being said, that being said, if you can be like the only one in the
Map pack or one of two, it’s worth a try.

Jesse: Definitely jump onto Google right now. Do some searches for your business services that
you offer. See if the Map pack shows up. Try some variations. You may find that certain
keywords and keyword phrases that Map pack is going to show up. There may be some
more obscure products and services that you offer where it doesn’t show up or some
variations on those. Don’t be discouraged by that because a cool side effect that you’re
going to get from this which is one of the main reasons again we want to highlight this
on the first episode is the Google My Business listing is going to help your website SEO.
As Bob had said earlier, you don’t have to have a website to get a Google My Business
listing and if you don’t have a website yet, don’t wait. Go get your Google My Business
listing now, get that thing get kicked off. But if you do have a website, there’s a spot on
the listing for you to enter in your website address and Google’s going to give you link
juice. It’s going to see that you have a website and it’s going to pay attention to your
website, it’s going to give you more prominence for that website.

So if you’re doing these searches for your business and you’re finding certain results
where they’re not showing the Map pack, if your website isn’t in that search results right
now towards the top for organic, you get your Map pack set up, you show up in the
Google My Business listings, you’re going to show up and dominate at the top of the
page on Google for those searches where there is not Map pack with your website.
You’re going to get that link juice and you’re going to get that benefit on your website
across the board on everything. Definitely worth the effort getting that thing set up.
Bob: It’s imperative ’cause we’ve had sites and worked with clients that didn’t have their Map
pack, we assumed they did and they didn’t and we did real well, we got to the top and
the phone was ringing for them and then after couple months all of a sudden it started
to drop and then drop and we couldn’t figure out why until we realized that Map pack
wasn’t filled out or filled out properly. Once we got that corrected, it was, it went up
and then the calls actually increased 30%.

Jesse: Yeah, the main purpose of what we’re trying to teach you guys is the how to get your
website to rank high in Google and just dominate that first page. If you’re just starting
out or you’re just starting some kind of overhaul or trying to breathe new life into this,
first thing is establish a baseline. Something that we always say to ourselves, preach to
our customers is you gotta measure everything.

Bob: Where are you at?

Jesse: Where are you at? So if you don’t know right now we actually have a free tool at our
website. If you go to intrycks.com. I-N-T-R-Y-C-K-S.com. Top right corner you’re going to
see a free SEO report. Click that, you gotta enter in your email address, it’s going to
show you an instant on page SEO report, it’s also going to send it to you via email and
it’ll tell you your current snapshot of your webpage and your website for how it’s
optimized. Go set up your Google My Business listing. Play around, do some searches to
see where you’re ranking. Write it down unless you have some kind of third party tool
which we definitely recommend but just write it down on a piece of paper or put it in a
spreadsheet. Write in the keywords, put where your rankings are. Get your Google My
Business set up and then check it a few days later. Maybe a couple weeks later and you
can see where your website’s going to be ranking higher already.

We’d love for you to share that with us. If this helps you we want to know that so we
know to keep doing this what kind of questions you might have or what kind of
frustrations you’re running into. We’re definitely available for help. Go to
intrycks.com/episode1, check out the show notes on this. There’s going to be a contact
form at the bottom so you can share your stories with us. Reach out to us where you
might need some help and we’re going to be here for you to help you on that journey.
Bob: You can do this. This’ll be a great start to you taking control of your business, growing
your business, getting it higher and higher up in Google ’cause at the end of the day
that’s what it’s going to take to grow your business.

Jesse: Again, check us out. Every week we’re going to come out with a new episode to help
you out with your business for the next three weeks or so I’d say once we come up with
some more content for it with some feedback from you guys for ideas we’re going to
keep focusing on the Google My Business listing because again, it is the A1 thing that
you gotta do for your business. Even if you’ve been around for 20 some years as we
have, you’ve got to pay attention to this thing. It’s that important. We’re going to focus
on it for a couple more weeks.

The next episode we’re going to talk about how to optimize your listing and how to add
photos to your listing to just get a lot more pizazz and pop when you show up in the
map listings on the results to get people to click on you. It’s not just good enough to
show up in those listings you want to be the one that they click on amongst the options.
And there’s definitely some tactics and tricks to do that. Stay tuned. Let us know where
we can help.

Bob: We’ll see you next week.

Jesse: We’ll see you next week.

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LINKS

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Listen to the episode however you like with the audio file.

WATCH VIDEO OF THE SHOW

YOU’LL LEARN

• What Google My Business (GMB) listings.
• How GMB listings can help your business.
• How GMB listings can benefit your website.
• How to create and account and setup your GMB listing.
• How to choose the correct business category.
• How to properly verify your business.

RESOURCES

Note: some of the resources below may be affiliate links, meaning we get paid a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase.

• Google My Business Account Setup Page
• Video Guide – How To Setup Your Google My Business Listing
• Our General Resources Page
• Our Free Instant Online SEO Audit