What Is GMB & Why Do I Need It for My Finance/Fintech Firm in Houston?

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What is Google My Business?

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Google My Business is a native Google platform for business listings. GMB is a tool to manage and optimize your online business profiles. 

GMB itself won’t land you on better local SERP rankings but will help your business rank on Maps and other Google business platforms. Effective SEO strategies and lead generations tools will help your business grow from strength to strength with its market competitors.

This article will discuss the benefits of having a business profile on GMB for Fin-tech firms.

Importance of Google My Business for Finance/Fin-tech Firms in Houston

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1. Google My Business is a Free Local Directory

Google My Business is a native Google directory for local businesses. It's one of the most popular yet free platforms to list a local business. Hence, the platform is convenient for most finance/fintech firms. 

Google my business helps fin-tech firms make their mark in the market. Relevant information about your business can attract a lot of potential prospects to your GMB listing. 

Your target audience can avail of your financial services if you provide contact details and website information on your GMB listing for them to reach out to you.

Let’s look at some of the popular features of Google My Business.

• GMB has tools to monitor and analyze user behavior. You can leverage it to find your fintech's target audience.
• You can add your social media handles on your GMB listings to drive more relevant prospects. Here’s how it appears on maps.

• GMB is a convenient platform for fin-techs to rank higher on the local SERPs.

Read: Step-by-step Setup Guide for Google My Business Set up

2. Improved Market Visibility

GMB listing of a fin-tech firm improves its market presence. Market visibility is an active SEO metric for any business to perform better in the market. 

Especially for fin-techs, higher market visibility provides options to attract more target audiences. It will help fintech provide its financial services to thousands of potential prospects in the market.

Market visibility contributes to the market reputation of a business. Reputation and credibility are two of the biggest factors to a fintech's market success. The more visibility a fin-tech firm will have, the better brand credibility it will gain.

Let’s look at proven tips to improve your fintech's market visibility via Google My Business listing.

• Add the complete URL of your fin-tech website. It will help drive the interested and relevant market crowd to your business website. 

In the below image, the business has mentioned the Address and phone number but no website URL. It lessens the rate of users exploring the business. So, it’s vital to add a URL in GMB. 

• Add external links to your blogs and citations. It will improve the credibility of your fin-tech in the market.
• Use performing keywords in business descriptions to engage and convert organic prospects into customers.

3. Drives and Engages Convertible Prospects

Consumers, customers, users, but let's call them prospects for fintech firms. People are the driving force of any growing business in the market, and a fin-tech is no different from that. 

Listing your fin-tech firm on the Google My Business directory will expose your fin-tech brand to the public.

GMB helps fintech websites drive organic and interested prospects. These prospects will visit your business website and are likely to avail themselves of your financial services. 

Optimize and upgrade your business website to improve lead conversion rate and create a loyal customer base.

Let’s look at some of the tips and tools you can use to monitor and improve the quality of your market prospects.

• Make sure to optimize your fin-tech website architecture. Make your website’s content creative and informative. 
• Google My Business possesses analytics tools to monitor your site visitors and behaviors. It provides insights into how the users engage with your GMB profile on SERP.

• Little Warden helps you monitor the impact of site traffic on your fintech firm's website SEO strategy.

4. GMB Provides Both Market and Customer Insights

We have seen a rabbit growth in the fintech market after the 2008 market crash. There are hundreds of new fintech firms coming up to offer their services every day. 

So, we need to keep two questions in mind while strategizing for SEO.

• What makes your fin-tech firm better than others? 
• Why would people prefer your firm to consult for their financial needs?

The answer is straightforward -- the audience will choose your fin-tech firm because you will have thorough market insights and customer behavior analysis. 

GMB provides multiple features for businesses to monitor their target customers in the market every day. Its smart suggestion features allow businesses to stay ahead of their competitors.

You can analyze your market competitors' sales, traffic drive, and other SEO parameters. It will help you curate a customized SEO strategy for your fin-tech firm. Customer search intents and buying behavior will help you curate a localized keyword strategy for your target audience.

5. Compatible With Major Digital Marketing Strategies

A fintech firm's GMB listing impacts many SEO parameters. GMB strategy may yield results, but it is a slow-performing digital marketing strategy. A synergy of different digital marketing strategies might help GMB listing yield profitable results faster. 

GMB is a versatile platform due to its compatibility with most digital marketing strategies. 

Fin-tech firms can integrate digital marketing strategies such as email, social media, and word of mouth with GMB listings to boost their local SEO strategies.

Let's look at some of the digital marketing strategies you can integrate with GMB.

• Use your GMB listing URL in the email marketing of your fin-tech firm. It will drive the relevant and convertible crowd to your business website.
• Providing blog links under GMB listings is a great way to engage more visitors on-site. It will help your website to have a higher dwell time. You can do it by exploring the ‘Posts’ option in GMB. 

• Create an internal linking structure in your fin-tech firm’s GMB listing business description. 

6. Google My Business Improves Market Reputation

Google shows the most credible search results to the audience in the market. 

If a user searches for ‘financial firms,' Google will show a generalized list of financial firms. But if the search is location-specific such as 'Finance Firms in Houston', then Google will provide the top fintech firms in Houston. It’s typically shown through local 3-pack as users can instantly view vital details like NAP. 

For example, look at the below screenshot where the results show businesses only in Houston. 

A business has to have credibility and a better market reputation for being on top of a localized search result.

GMB is a platform for fintech firms to improve their reputation. Market reputation is one of the critical metrics of a successful SEO campaign. People have fears of getting duped with their money. 

Hence, the market image of a fintech firm matters the most for a business to sustain itself in the market.

Let’s look at some strategies to improve your fintech’s market reputation through GMB listing.

• Mention your business details and NAP clearly for people to reach out to you.

• Attend negative reviews and find feasible resolutions on your GMB listing's reviews section.

7. GMB Boosts Active Local SEO Metrics

SEO strategy for a business comprises many active and passive parameters. Operational SEO metrics are site traffic, lead conversion rate, market visibility, and market reputation. 

These parameters are considered in an SEO audit for the profitability of an SEO strategy. Google My Business and localized rankings heavily influence these active SEO metrics.

Google My Business allows fin-tech firms to have necessary market visibility. Increased market visibility will improve site traffic. It sparks a chain reaction of growth in lead conversion rate, sales, and market reputation for fin-tech firms.

Let's look at some strategies to improve SEO metrics through Google My Business listing.

• Use GMB’s customer analysis tools to find suitable sets of customers to target in the market.
• Update your fintech's business-relevant information such as offers, working hours, and special occasions on the GMB listing. It will help with your business website's site traffic and dwell time.

8. Helps Fin-tech Firms Outrank the Local Competitors.

For most fintech firms, outranking local competitors in the market has always been a challenge. Getting ranked higher on localized searches is one of the priority goals for a business. Google My Business boosts localized rankings of businesses in the market. 

Google my business will help your fin-tech rank on Google Maps. It will further enhance your market visibility and localized market rankings. The more up-to-date your listing on GMB, the better you will rank on local SERPs.

Let’s look at some tips for fintech firms in Houston to outrank local market competitors.

• Conduct thorough keyword research for your fin-tech firm website. Use long-tail keywords on your GMB profile. Performing keywords will boost the organic lead conversion rate of your fin-tech website. 

Using Keyword Planner, you can find trending keywords for your locality, as shown below.

• Create niche-specific content for the target market. If you are a fintech firm, your target audience expects relevant content from your business website. Audience-specific content generates more site traffic and yields more market performance.

9. Improves Client-customer Relationship

Let’s look at the top 5 factors of a client-customer relationship for leading financial firms in the market.

• Genuine reviews and testimonials on-site
• Loyalty program from long-standing customers.
• Priority-based services and offers.

Take a look at the below example; it shows almost everyone has given a positive review which urges new customers to become prospects of this fintech firm. 

Considering the factors mentioned above, it is safe to say that leading fin-tech firms hold their customer relationship in high regard. Many leading global fintech firms have a dedicated department and workforce for customer relationship management. 

GMB listing helps improve the existing customer relationship of fin-tech firms. It provides tools and features for fin-tech owners to analyze their target market and audience extensively before implementing different marketing strategies.

So how does GMB helps small-scale and upcoming fin-tech firms better their customer relationship?

• GMB allows users to get in touch with businesses via the review section.
• GMB has features for fin-tech firms to filter genuine visitors from the general ones.
• Fin-tech firms can retarget and persuade past clientele from GMB listing’s stored market analysis and user behavior data.

Read: 10 Tips to Get Local Reviews for Your Business

10. GMB Helps Gain Genuine Customer Testimonials

Local directory reviews contribute to a successful SEO campaign for a business. It also boosts localized and organic market rankings of a business. Fin-tech firms climb up on the rankings due to their excellent reputation in the market. 

Reviews and genuine client testimonials provide the cushion of credibility for most of these finance firms.

GMB allows users and visitors to review businesses and their services. 

Businesses that attend to their reviews on GMB listings tend to gain more trust in their services from the audience. It will attract genuine attention and improve the market presence for fin-tech firms. 

The audience will look at the human side of your business and relate to it.

Let’s look at some of the impacts of genuine customer testimonials on localized rankings of Fin-tech firms.

• Attending to negative reviews on your GMB reviews section improves brand credibility and on-site user engagement.
• Genuine reviews on your GMB listing let the search engine crawlers index your fin-tech firm on priority listings.

Key Takeaways

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• Use GMB to create a business profile for your fin-tech firm. It is a free local directory.

• Improve your fin-tech firm’s market visibility due to audience exposure on GMB.

• Drive high-value convertible prospects to your fin-tech website from the GMB listing.

• Gain both market and customers insights for your fin-tech firm from GMB analysis tools.

• Analyze your market competitors and curate SEO strategies accordingly to outrank them.

• Improve your fintech’s market reputation and credibility through GMB.

• Manage genuine customer testimonials to improve user engagement and the market presence of your fintech firm.