Many business owners struggle to connect their actual businesses with the internet. Creating a presence online for your business can seem overly complicated at the first glance, especially for owners that are not very familiar with modern technologies. However, this process is not that complicated. Google has created Google My Bussiness as a way for businesses to easily connect with potential customers online. It is in every business’s interest to be visible to as many people as they can, and Google My Business (GMB) helps with that. Today, we are going to explore how you can make your business website more visible by connecting it with a GMB profile, ie. how can you go about connecting your Google My Business profile to your website!
Why is Google My Business useful?
It is often said that if a person doesn’t have a social media profile it is like that person doesn’t exist. While that is not true at all, the saying can be applied to today’s businesses. If your business doesn’t exist online, people will unlikely know about your business, unless you are a well-established local shop or a restaurant. Even then, it is better to have a presence online. Google My Business can be very useful even for those kinds of local businesses.
Imagine that you have a restaurant in a small town. Tourists who come to that place will most likely go to a restaurant that has a presence online since they can find it on a map and explore the menu before they come in. If people love your services, they will rate your business as a good one, and more people will likely go to your business. Even locals are more likely to visit a restaurant that has a presence online, especially younger generations.
Google My Business, or GMB for short, is an online tool created by Google that enables businesses to share their location, offers, sales, ratings, and contact online. By using this service, you’ll ensure that your business not only survives but thrive in this digital age. But, you have to know how to optimize your Google My Listing Page absolutely. If you want to know more about that, you can do it on AZ Citation Services website.
Create a business website
There are plenty of ways in which you can create a website for your business. One of the most common and easiest ways is during the process of claiming your business profile. During that process, you’ll have the option to create a website for your business based on your information.
You need to set up your profile. How you are going to do that we are going to explore in the rest of this guide. After you are finished with creating a profile, you can choose which locations are relevant. If you have multiple locations for your business, here you can choose which locations you want to manage.
However, you can choose to use different bulders for your websites like WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace. In this case, you have to visit their websites to find out how you can build your business website with their tools. The process is always more or less the same, with a few different details. GMB is not a part of your website, but you can use it to get more customers.
Setup your profile
The first thing you have to do is to actually set up your Google My Business or your Google+ profile. How can you do that?
First of all, you have to visit the google.com/business page. You can do that by simply typing this exact address in your browser’s search bar (Chrome, Opera, Safari, Mozilla), or by searching for “Google My Business” on Google.
Once you are on a Google My Business main page, it will ask you to sign in to your Google account. This account is the same as your Gmail account. You can click on the “Sign in” button on the top right of your screen. If you don’t have a Google account, or if you want to create a new one for your business, make sure to create a new one.
Now, all you have to do is to follow the instructions. Google will guide you and ask you questions about the customization of your profile. One of the things you need to do is to verify your business’s location on the map. If you already have a Google+ account, or if you already have registered your business through Google Places, you are good to go. After that, connecting your Google My Business Profile to your website will be easy.
With this process, you will create a Google+ Page for your business, if you already don’t have one. Just make sure to follow new features and changes on Google My Business, if you want to stay up to date.
Connect your profile
It is finally time to connect your business website to your Google my Business Page. This process is actually quite easy once you have your website up and running.
- The first thing you have to do is to go to Google Maps and search your business name. You can do that on any device. Simply type in a search bar your business name, and click on it.
- After that, you’ll see several options under your business name, like save, nearby, etc. Click on the “share” button.
- You’ll see several options on how you can share your location on your website. Make sure to click on “Embed a map”.
- Click on a “Copy HTML” button, and paste it to your website.
The process is more or less the same if you are using WordPress or any other service like Wix or Squarespace.
So, you see, connecting your Google My Business Profile to your website is quite easy. All you have to do is to follow our or Google’s steps, and you are good to go.
