One of the easiest ways to build locally-relevant SEO clout and be seen by search engine users is the Google My Business feature. This incredible solution allows businesses to provide virtually any and all information about their local selves to search engine users. From hours of operation to website, address, phone number and other crucial details, GMB allows for dozens of unique, customized data-points to be entered by a business or brand.

With such power to enhance the visibility of your brand, optimizing this platform is crucial. Fortunately, you can easily optimize a variety of fields and sections in relatively little time. As such, we’ll look at some of these crucial optimizations that you should make today.

Add All Available Hours

If your business operates at a physical location or is otherwise accessible during select hours, then ensuring this data is included is vital. Ultimately, GMB allows for the addition of standard hours, as well as other temporary hours based on elements such as the recent pandemic.

Additionally, GMB users can add holiday hours to their pages in the event that their schedules differ during the holiday season. Such brands and businesses ultimately will attract far more attention and conversions by giving people a clear idea of when their businesses are open.

Add Photos and Updates

There is great value in pinging to Google a variety of multimedia formats in a general sense. For your GMB page specifically, the benefits are just as substantial.

Google has mentioned that businesses with photos on their GMB pages get over 40 percent more clicks and directions requests than businesses without photos. This also provides a valuable opportunity for brands to showcase products, surroundings and anything else deemed valuable by the average customer or consumer.

Additionally, GMB allows brands to post updates directly to their pages, which is great for showcasing new products, upcoming events and major discounts. If the post is particularly relevant to a local search, then the post may even show up in Google’s Map Pack as a search result.

Enable Messages

Google My Business pages are not simply static, informational portals: they also provide customers with the ability to interact directly with the brand. With this in mind, one of the best features to take advantage of is the ability to send messages. Your GMB page can quickly be configured to allow people to send messages, and the button itself can be customized to reflect the inquiry most associated with your brand (for example, “get a quote”, “sign up”, “ask a question”, etc).

Fill Out Everything

The more details you’re pinging to Google, the more often you’ll be shown in relevant search results. To maximize the chances of this occurring, it is important that GMB pages are completely filled out.

There are now dozens of fields that brands and businesses can fill out to optimize their pages. While not every brand will need to literally fill out everything (as some fields will be irrelevant to their particular operations), ensuring no blank field that could otherwise optimize your search presence remains is crucial for best results.

GMB offers a unique experience to brands that make it easy to be seen by local and/or relevant audiences in search. As such, it only makes sense to optimize every facet of the GMB experience in order to maximize its effectiveness.