Google Business Profile: Your online foundation
If you’ve been in business for a while and you are ready to begin a marketing and promotional strategy to get serious about growing your business, it’s time to claim your online credentials. One of the early steps is to claim and build out your Google Business Profile. While this may have been a “nice to have” in the past, it’s now a crucial step in how you build your online presence, especially with AI search becoming such a prominent component of how people might find you.
If the robots can’t find your page, do you even exist?! While this feels a little extreme, if you’re ready to market, you need to invest in this profile. It will help the LLMs to identify your business as the thing you say it is on your website. It’s also one of the very first things that appears when someone searches for your business name. You want to be sure it’s telling your story appropriately.
But where do I start?
Starting with a solid foundation will pay dividends as you work to spread the word about your business.
Here are four elements of a solid Google Business Profile to keep in mind as you get started.
1. Current/accurate details for your business name, address and phone number (your NAP). Be consistent with these elements on all online profiles (Yelp, Nextdoor, industry listings, etc.).
2. Use natural language for your business description. This also needs to be consistent with other online profiles to help the LLMs. It’s a simple description of what you do and what you want to be known for (but avoid sales language here).
3. Avoid lots of blanks, inconsistencies or treating your profile as a one-and-done responsibility.
4. Create a pattern for updating your profile with photos, updates or posts to signal your business is active. Suggestion: block out 30 minutes 1-2 times per month to give your profile some love.
If you haven’t invested in building out your profile, now is the time as it’s a factor in how AI searches for answers. Elements like reviews will come into play down the road and are a significant trust signal for AI search. More on that in another post.