How to Get More Customers in Austin with Google My Business

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In a city as bustling as Austin, it can be tough to stand out from the competition and attract new customers. However, with a Google My Business (GMB) account, business owners can easily promote their company to potential customers searching for the ones like theirs online. 

By creating a free GMB profile, you can add important information about your company, including your address, hours of operation, and website URL.

Learn how to attract many customers by exploiting GMB in this blog post. 

Let's dive into the topic.

Eight Amazing Tips to Make GMB Work for Your Small Business in Austin

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1. Get More Positive Reviews

People trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. That means it's more important than ever for small businesses to get positive reviews on their GMB profile for more leads and customers. 

Reviews help you attract new customers, but they can also help you retain current ones. The best way to get more reviews is to ask your customers for them after they've had a good experience with your business.

Positive reviews make customers feel happy and confident about using a business. They are likely to share their good experience with others, which will bring in more customers.

Such reviews can impact prospects in a few ways. First, they can help attract new customers looking for businesses with positive ratings. Second, they can help reassure current customers that they made a good choice in doing business with the company.

Tip: Learn the best practices to get good reviews on your GMB profile by reading this Google blog post.

Here’s an example of a positive customer review:

2. Answer Customer Queries

Answering customer queries and complaints in your GMB profile can help bring in more customers by showing that you are responsive and care about your customers' needs. Additionally, responding to customer feedback can help you identify areas that need improvement.

As a small business in Austin, you must understand that customer engagement is a critical component of customer retention. By responding to their queries and complaints, you provide them with the level of service they expect and build trust and loyalty.

Say that someone claims on your GMB listing that they had a bad experience with your property management service. Answering their complaint right on the platform can help turn that situation around and make the person a loyal customer.

Read: FAQs on Google My Business Issues

Tip: Use GMB's Q&A section to answer the commonly asked questions. Use a personal account to ask questions and use the profile with GMB admin access to answer them.

Here’s an example of a GMB admin’s response to a customer query:

Read: FAQs on Google My Business Issues

3. Use Keywords in Profile

To make the most of your GMB profile, you'll want to use keywords that accurately reflect what your business does. For example, a pest control service can use terms such as "pest control," "exterminator," "rodent control," and "insect control" to help potential customers find them online.

This will help your business appear in search results for people looking for businesses like yours. Additionally, using keywords in reviews and ratings can help boost the business' visibility online.

Read: Benefits of Using Long-tail keywords for SEO

For example, you could answer a customer query with an appropriate answer sprinkled with words such as "best" and "affordable." When prospects search for "best pest services near me," your GMB profile has a bright chance to pop up!

For example, note how this business that serves Chinese food has the keyword “Chinese restaurant” in its GMB profile:

4. Fill out Your GMB Profile

There is no specific formula for optimizing a Google My Business listing to attract more customers. The approach that will work best for your business may vary depending on your industry and target audience.

However, some general best practices include ensuring that your listing is complete and accurate, regularly updating your information, using high-quality images and videos, creating a compelling business description, and taking advantage of reviews and Q&A.

The importance of fully optimizing your GMB profile can't be overstated. A complete and well-optimized profile will attract more customers and help you stand out from the competition. 

GMB Profile Completeness Checklist:

• Address
• Hours of operation
• Website link
• Photos and videos
• Customer reviews
• Contact info
• Listing title optimization
• Description
• Attributes
• Services offered
• Profile verification
• Covid-19 update
• Announcements (There are more!)

Here’s an example of a GMB profile with complete information:

5. Use Google Analytics to Your Advantage

Some business owners choose not to link their Google Analytics and Google My Business accounts together because they think it will work more. However, business owners can get valuable customer insights by linking these two accounts.

For example, linking these two accounts shows how many people view their GMB listing and how many of those click through to their website.

By tracking this traffic, one can better understand how their listing performs. To achieve this, you will need to create a goal in Google Analytics.

Steps:

• You first need to create a Google Analytics account and connect it to your Google My Business account.
• Once you have done that, you will see how much traffic is coming from Google My Business in the "Acquisition" section of your Google Analytics account.
• You can then use this information to improve your Google My Business listing and drive more traffic to your business.

Here’s a screenshot of Google Analytics:

6. Respond to Negative Reviews

Addressing negative reviews on your GMB profile is important in attracting more customers to your business. You can show other potential customers that you care about your customers and their experience with your business by responding to negative reviews. 

Additionally, addressing negative reviews can help you identify and correct any problems that may have led to the negative review in the first place (This is crucial to your business's sustainability).

Negative reviews can make customers feel unhappy and uncomfortable about using a business. They may be more likely to influence others to write a negative review and less likely to recommend the business to others or use it again in the future.

Read: 10 Tips to Get Local Reviews for Your Business 

Forget about recommending you; they may even badmouth about your business.

Tips:

• Respond to the reviews publicly.
• Apologize for any inconvenience and try to resolve the issue.
• Reach out to the reviewer privately to address the complaint and potentially win back their loyalty.
• Never ignore a negative review.
• Responding to negative reviews can help show other potential customers that you are taking the issue seriously and are committed to providing a high level of customer service. 

Here’s an example of a business responding to a negative customer review:

Read: Reviews & Its Role in Local SEO

7. Learn How to Report Reviews with Malicious Intent

Removing malicious reviews from your Google My Business profile is important. 

• First, it protects your customers from being misled by inaccurate or false information. 
• Second, it helps you maintain a positive reputation and attract new customers. 
• Finally, it ensures that your business appears as high as possible on search engine results pages (SERPs), where potential customers are likely to look for information about your company.

There are a few ways to remove malicious reviews from your Google My Business profile. The first is to report the review as inappropriate.

Google will scrutinize the review and determine if it violates its content policies. If it does, Google will remove the review. You can also contact Google directly to have them remove the review. However, you will need to prove that the review is fake or malicious.

For example, if someone posts a malicious comment about your business without experiencing anything at your business, you can report it by flagging it as a "fake review" or "inappropriate."

Here’s a screenshot of reporting a review as inappropriate:

8. Update Your Profile Often & Use New Features

Small business owners understand the importance of being found online. Still, many don't realize that updating their Google My Business profile is one of the most effective ways to get more customers. 

You may think that your business name, address, phone number, description, and a few photos are enough to get things going. But there is more to do. So roll up the sleeves and update regularly.

Adding new information, such as new products or services or changes to your hours of operation, features introduced in your shop such as children's play area, and free parking are crucial for your profile's visibility.

Updating the profile helps ensure that customers can always find the latest information about the business.

Tip: Many do not exploit the new features GMB offers. Do not be one of them. 

For example, one of the lesser-known features of Google My Business is the ability to create and manage events. 

This can be useful if you want to promote an event, such as a sale or a special promotion, or if you want to announce an upcoming appearance by a celebrity or public figure at your shop. 

You can also use events to gather feedback from your customers or celebrate a special occasion.

Here’s a screenshot of an event on GMB:

Key Takeaways:

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• Start with building raving reviews. Reach out to your loyal customers and ask for reviews.
• Report malicious and fake reviews to Google to protect potential customers from influence.
• Rectify the problems raised by negative but honest reviews.
• Use new features offered by GMB.
• Frequently update your listing.
• Make use of your profile to plant some keywords.
• Ensure your profile is complete. Do not leave any form fields unfilled.
• Read the data from Google Analytics and implement necessary changes to attract a fresh influx of traffic.