Posting on your Google listing before posting on Facebook ensures your customers can learn about your services more quickly. This is simply because Google My Business (GMB) is more searchable than a social media page (it is part of the largest search engine in the world, after all).
The primary piece of information searched for by local customers is your location address and phone number, and this will be visible in the knowledge panel on the right-hand side of your search results. This is where your business can manage its online presence across Google, and the posts you add here appear in the knowledge panel, adding to the information any prospective customer will see if they’re interested in your business.
Grow your local maps presence
Google averages 3.5 billion searches per day, compared to Facebook’s 2 billion per day, and 82 percent of people use search engines to find local information. Google is obviously designed around the power of keywords — and people searching for keywords related to your business clearly have an idea of what they’re looking for, so they’re already more likely to be converted into customers.
By posting content directly through your GMB listing, you can build your local listing authority, get more real estate on the search results page to catch a customer’s eye. and let Google know that you’re a legit business that it should be displaying to people making searches. There is a chance (as no-one knows the Google ranking algorithm that the more relevant info you post here, the higher your listing could get in the results. We provide a local SEO service to help with getting your Google maps listings to appear higher in the search results, the 3pack and 6 pack and on mobile Google maps apps as well.
What you can include in a Google listing post
Your GMB posts can include up to 1,500 characters of text, along with photos, videos, offers, e-commerce listings and more. You could include a killer Call To Action (CTA), which our copywriters can help you write, along with other useful information about your business, including:
- How to make a reservation
- How to sign up for a newsletter
- Information about special offers
- A particular product/service you want to showcase, e.g. because they have high margins
- A ‘call now’ button
For restaurants, this is a great place to add a menu so users can quickly decide if they like the look of what you have to offer. You can also add FAQs to your listing to provide some additional information about how your service works.
By posting compelling information in these posts, you might even get people elsewhere on the internet posting links to your site. These are called backlinks, and they’re incredibly valuable to SEO. You could also add links to pages on your website in GMB posts, sending motivated potentials to products and services you want them to see.
Along with keeping your Google listing in tip-top-shape, Local Service Ads and Google Guaranteed are an excellent way to increase your visibility online and beat the competition. We have many years of experience helping businesses small and large to stand out online, so get in touch if you think your business could benefit.
