Google Business Platform for entrepreneurs
Column #itSAMarketingThing 10: Learning what is Google for Businesses.
The chronicle of different and low-cost marketing for startups, businesses and entrepreneurs. It’s a marketing story is told every month in the Monthly Ticket of the Marketing Blog.
The Telephone Directory Is Replaced
Just as we look for a word definition in the dictionary, there was a time when we consulted the directory to find a local service. Displaying our business there was commonplace.
Today, we can consider web search tools as such. Google is the most popular. Displaying our business is also commonplace.
Google offers free display for companies and the possibility of receiving consultation notifications, an appointment booking option, visitor search statistics and more. These are lucrative information for positioning a company in its market. Knowing our visitors better.
For a couple months, W+M Services manage the Google Business account as a social media top page. The content is updated monthly, with the website and social branding.
Creating the Business Page on the Google Business Platform
Creating an account for managing your business profile is way easy. Filling out the contact details form, indicating opening hours, adding images and a logo; this can be done in 20 minutes. Let’s move on to another topic.
Creating this free profile will allow our business to appear in searches and especially on the map (Google Maps).
This is where we can manage special opening hours on holidays.
When coordinating the branding of your business account with the hosting website and socials, it has a global impact that secures new visitors. Isn’t that a luxury ad in the directory?
Of course, the management of the business Google page is now included in W+M social media planning.
Add products in the Merchant Centre
And attention, website store publishers, the Merchant Center allows displaying products from our catalogues of our online store!
The product management tool, from the Business management page, is easy to use and gives access to inventory management linked to our online and live website, avoiding two separate inventories. A question and answer section allows us to detail the service and option.
Finally, if you have a domain with a personalized email, it’s possible to link your business page to your email management tool with the Google WorkSpace platform. I recommend it, especially if you’re publishing your first site on a platform like WordPress and you have no idea how to organize and manage your first email. The service will do everything for you and you will only have to click on the links the system sends you to confirm access rights. Also, often the first month is free or only costs less than $10, so a nice time saver for entrepreneurs, right, because manually opening an email from the Google system takes slightly more than WorkSpace’s time.
Budget: $0. Google Business page programming time isn’t long when we have all the texts, business and product and service descriptions and business images.
Tips: I read at the beginning of the year that adding visuals to the business sections on Google, but also to all search tools, was beneficial. I then adjusted the presentations on the business accounts I manage. I confirm this since I have seen a strong increase from visitor traffic coming from the accounts business page after adding visuals. Then I added more promotional images and the product from the Merchant Centre.
Tools: Create a free account on the Google Business page. Everything is done even using a phone. The system is user-friendly and the explanations are precise. I also enjoy working in Google management. I can easily find additional information there if needed. This isn’t the case for several platforms when you have to search for additional information for 10 minutes.
Local Commerce
A word about customer proximity. As customers ourselves, there are many needs met by companies around where we live or our office. The choice and appointment of professional services, gym memberships and lunches are decided based on our lifestyle, family availability and traffic times.
Although supermarkets and the ease of virtual shopping have a significant place in the distribution of our products and services, it’s important to always keep a place in our strategies and promotions for our local customers. The one who travels three additional street corners to enter our business, because we accept, without reservation, well-trained dogs, for example.
Developing a local and proximity market is a new reason to use the business listing service on Google, or another search tool like Yahoo or Bing. The health crisis and confinements of 2020 have accelerated the trend of local and responsible consumption. According to the YouGov study carried out for U2P (Union of Local Businesses), 35% of French people say they have visited their local businesses more frequently since spring 2020.
Advertising
Conclusion
I finish this Google Business article with related W+M post on Google.
See you in the Blog!
Jeff
Sources:
Create a Business Profile on Google resources: https://www.google.com/intl/fr_ca/business/
(French article Why France locals use more and more near businesses. (Pourquoi les Français soutiennent de plus en plus leurs petits commerces) from Petitscommerces.fr.
Cr Images and production: W+M Services
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Websites - creation, management and design
I edit the content of existing sites via CMS in addition to creating sites with WordPress and Squarespace. I have been producing website content as a webmaster since 1998.
I help companies get their first website up and I improve the performance of existing sites.
Yes, I’m Mr. Analytics and my reaction time to new digital marketing is daily, which allows my clients to have optional and trend-cutting tools.
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