How Google My Business Can Benefit B2B Businesses?
Estimated Read Time: 4 minutes
Intended Audience: Microsoft Partners, SaaS Owners, B2B Marketers
[Updated 9th December, 2020]
Google is continuously adding to its list of products and software platforms. Google My Business (GMB) was released and lodged into our search results without many people unaware of it. Others took their chance and utilized it to its full potential and reaped its benefits from local customers. B2B companies were a lot slower off the starting line with this feature, but what many don’t realize is that Google My Business can be hugely beneficial to B2B companies, especially in a local market.
What is Google My Business?
GMB is operated by Google and was released in 2014. This platform helps users find local businesses and answers search queries without users needed to enter websites. Google My Business has a long list of benefits for local businesses, including:
- Increased customer trust
- Expanded search engine real estate
- Increased website traffic for businesses
- Free advertising if done correctly
- One-click accurate business info for customers
- Simple location-based search engine marketing
With these benefits in mind, it is crucial for a local business to have and maintain a Google My Business profile for each location. The information included in GMB is continuously changing, but at its core, it includes company name, address, hours of operation, website and company description.
The customer engagement features allow customers to post photos and videos in response to any posts, announcements and menus to showcase the business from the eyes of the customers and give assurance to potential new customers. Plus, the review system allows customers to engage by leaving feedback, whether good or bad, a feature that is critically important to new customers’ first impressions of your business online.
Why is Google My Business Important for Business-to-Business?
Google My Business (GMB) assists all companies including B2B ones, purely from the style in which people search through Google currently. The most common method of search is through a mobile device, that includes employees in the business.
If a customer journey begins on a mobile device, it is important to optimize that through the business listing provided on GMB. If you aren’t optimized fully for the style in which most people search you are missing out on potential leads.
Google gives businesses listed on Google My Business the advantage over the ones that are not when serving results for voice searches. So, the more work you put into your GMB and SEO, the better results you will yield from Google as part of their overall search algorithm. Simply put, you want to make it as easy as possible for Google to serve your listing as a response to your customer’s questions.
How to Optimize Your B2B Google My Business Listing
1. Reviews! Reviews! Reviews!
2. Stake your claim and shorten your name.
It is quite simple, the shorter and easier your brand name is to say through voice searches, the higher your search results will be. It is a factor always to keep in mind when naming a B2B business. Companies that have long-winded names it presents a difficulty for Google to lead users to your listing, take it from Maven Collective Marketing (but there is also something to be said for including your domain expertise in your name as well). So by helping Google out and leading them to your business listing, you will benefit from it.
3. The positive attraction with frequent posts.
4. Get visual
Posting images and videos on your business listing on Google My Business will allow customers and the user’s to engage better with your listing but again allows Google to reward you accordingly. Don’t be afraid to get creative in the style of your media you post on your listing as we can tell from now, the more you give the more you get from customers and Google.
5. Fully complete your business listing
This is another simple step which will be rewarded, the more accurate information you give and the quantity of it will lead to better results. Try not to skip through any information details as it is a direct point to potential new leads for your B2B leads. If a business owner meets a potential lead outside their office they would give them all the important relevant information, this should be no different.
Here below we have an image of our current Google My Business listing which shows our methods in practice:
It's Always Time to Optimize Your B2B Google My Business Listing!
Improving your B2B business ranking on Google My Business may require some work and effort but as stated above the rewards are all achievable with some organization and a clear strategy laid out by other members of the business. This is a platform that other companies are making the most out of, so why not make it another advantage for your company?
Want to find out how you can use Google My Business for your B2B website? We’d love to hear from you!
