Importance of Google My Business

Google My Business (GMB) is the most important directory/listing on the internet, but why is that? And if you don’t have a GMB profile, should you get one? Yes, you should absolutely create one and if one already exists that you don’t control, you should make sure to take ownership of it.

Dominant Search Engine

Google is the dominant search engine, accounting for 90% of the market share versus all other search engines (ie. Bing). There isn’t a more dominant search engine out there which means when the majority of people search, they use Google. This means to capture that audience whether it be for your brand name, local searches (restaurants near me, hair salon [city], etc), you’ll need to have a GMB listing.

Brand Recognition

GMB also helps with brand recognition by ensuring that anytime someone searches your organisations’ name, they see your business name, picture, phone number, description, link to your website, as well as any interesting, useful, or fun GMB posts you have submitted.

Search Engine Results Page

GMB also takes up valuable real estate on the search engine results page (SERPs). Anytime someone searches for your business name or your profile shows up in the SERPs, you’ll see it taking up the whole right hand-side on desktop searches and mobile. With mobile it’s even better because your listing will be the first and only thing people see until they scroll all the way down on their search. Occasionally if you get really lucky and are in a small enough town, you may even show up for a non-branded term.

Maps & Local Search

The 4th reason why it’s super important is that without it, you won’t be found on the Google Map pack listings. So your business will not be discovered organically to nearby potential customers or people looking for your services in a specific area. This could potentially cost your business a lot of exposure and/or business from potential customers that just don’t know who you are because you aren’t being shown.

As can be seen, there are a lot of potential reasons why GMB is the most important directory on the internet. Without it, you are potentially costing your business a lot of customers/revenue, so be sure to create, claim, and optimise your GMB to obtain the best local exposure for your business.

Want to learn more about how you can utilise search engines to maximise business success? Consider a specialised and dynamic online search marketing course that covers SEO, paid search (PPC), Google Adwords, Microsoft Ads (Bing Ads), and more. Taught by industry experts, to ensure that you have the proper tools and knowledge to maximise business success.