Benefits to Verifying a Google My Business Account

Jenny Phu

May 24, 2019

In a previous blog post we talked about the various options to verify your Google My Business (GMB) profile. In this post, we will go into the many benefits of verifying your GMB profile, and there are lots of them!

Verifying your GMB profile will give you insights into your profile performance, including insights into what kinds of searches lead users to see your business profile, e.g. branded vs. non-branded searches; where they are seeing your GMB listing, e.g. Google search lists or Google maps, and more!

Below are examples of the kinds of insights you can see for your business profile:

You can also get a report on the kinds of actions users take when they see your GMB listing:

This reporting also gives you  insights into the following:

• How customers are searching for your business and what kinds of keywords they are using to search
• Where customers view your listing on Google (via Google Maps or search results page)
• What actions customers take on your listing when they see your listing
• From where customers are requesting directions to your business
• What days of the week customers are calling your business via Google My Business
• How many photo views your GMB photos are receiving on Google
• How many photos posted by your business and by customers your profile has compared to other businesses like yours

These insights are important in helping you determine the necessary actions to take on your profile like whether you need to add more photos to your profile, whether you need to change the service area listed on your profile, whether you need to change your profile description and more!

Verifying your business will help you put your business on Google Maps. This will increase your location visibility and help your business stand out when a user is looking on Google Maps in your neighborhood.

This is extremely important as it helps you appear for general searches as well. If someone searches for “Lawyers near me” on their cell phone, and you are a local law firm, you’d want to show up right?

Verifying your GMB profile will allow you to upload photos to your business profile and to control the photos that users post to your GMB profile. This is important in case you would like to remove any photos posted by customers whether because they are outdated, irrelevant, misleading or harmful to your business reputation. You will also be able to categorize your photos to indicate whether the photos posted to your profile feature your business interior, exterior, team or staff at work!

Claiming your GMB profile allows you to edit portions of your business profile information that you would not be able to do without claiming your profile. This includes editing the following pieces of information:

• Business description
• Website
• Services
• Open date
• Address
• Phone number

Once you claim your profile you can edit your profile details to provide the most accurate and most recent business information to the public.

Another benefit to claiming your GMB profile is getting notifications on new reviews and photo performance. You will get an email notification any time a customer posts a review about your business on your profile and an email notification on how many views your profile photos are receiving.

Getting email notifications on reviews is important for you to see what the customer stated about your business and for you to be able to respond to customer reviews, whether they be positive or negative. Getting email notifications on photo performance metrics can help you determine what kinds of photos customers are clicking on that they find interesting or relevant to what they are looking for and help inform you what kind of content your customers will respond to. Notifications will also help you determine whether to make changes to your business offerings, your business hours, pricing, and more!

Once you verify your business you will have the option to manage your profile via the Google My Business – Connect With Your Customers official Android or iPhone app. This app allows you to get notifications on your phones of customer reviews, look at performance insights in a mobile-optimized interface, post photos of your business directly from your phone to your business page and more!

Once you are able to manage your business profile through the mobile app you will also have the option to accept mobile messages via the official app. This feature allows users that see your business on their mobile phones to message your business directly through the GMB listing. This increases your accessibility to customers and will allow those customers who prefer text messaging over phone calling to contact you. This is perfect for businesses that pride themselves of fast customer service.

For small businesses that do not have an online website, having a verified GMB profile will even allow them to build a simple website that showcases their business name, address, hours of operation, services and photos. This website can be easily built and updated via Google My Business.

Note that websites built via Google My Business are highly limited in presentation and functionality. This feature provides a limited selection of site templates and color themes and your website URL will start with your choice of an available business name followed by “.business.site”. While the features are limited, this option is great for small businesses that do not have the resources to build a corporate website.

A huge convenience factor in having a verified GMB profile is the ability to accept bookings and reservations via your profile. You can start receiving bookings through your profile within 1 week of verification by connecting to the various providers listed below:

Note that these third party booking services do charge a monthly fee for their services so explore your options!

Verifying your Google My Business profile offers you more insights to your profile performance and gives you so many more capabilities to customizing your business profile on Google. We highly recommend every local business to take advantage of these free features offered by Google. We hope this guide was informative and will help to increase the visibility of your GMB listing and to put your business on Google Maps!