You might know Google Business Profile by a different name - Google My Business. Though Google rebranded the tool to a new name, it’s still the same free service and as valuable as ever. And today, we’ll look at what Google Business Profile offers, why it's such a beneficial resource, and how you can get the most out of your Google Business Profile.

Google Business Profile Features

At its most basic level, your Google Business Profile should be a showcase of your business’s most basic information. And all of the essential features needed to launch your Google Business Profile will give your audience just that. Some of those features include:

• Photos: You can upload pictures to your Google Business Profile of your location and team to help customers find your physical office or store. And if you’re in an industry with physical products, you can upload photos of those products to show potential customers some of your best offerings. 

• Customer Reviews: Almost everyone uses customer reviews to determine the general quality of a business. If you’re looking for a new place to shop or dine, the word and rating of others who have visited is the clearest way to paint a picture of that company’s quality. Most users want those reviews readily available, so Google displays a business's star rating as one of the first notes on a Business Profile.

• Google Maps Integration: When someone searches for your business or business address on Google Maps, your Google Business Profile will pop up.

• Contact Info and Operating Hours: At its most basic, Google Business Profile is a page that displays your contact information and your hours of operation to clients. Thankfully, GBP is easy to update, so if any of that information changes, you can reflect that on your profile in just a couple of seconds.

Why You Should Have a Google Business Profile

There are countless benefits to having a Google Business Profile, but there are three that stand above the rest as the biggest reasons why you should sacrifice the minimal time investment it takes to set one up.

Visibility

Setting up a Google Business Profile will increase your favorability with the search engine since your profile is a verifiable source that your business is genuine, up and running, and provides an in-demand service. So, setting up a Google Business Profile will increase the odds that your business page will appear in related search results from local users rather than being buried under a sea of search results from businesses with better SEO.

Google is the world’s most popular search engine, reporting billions of unique search inquiries daily. No other search tool comes close to matching Google’s popularity. So when you create a Google Business Profile, you’re not just boosting your ability to stand out on a search engine; you’re boosting your ability to stand out on the biggest search engine out there.

Credibility

Google Business profiles are such a standard now that most people expect to see one attached to your business when browsing search results. If you don’t have a page that's forthcoming with business information, it can give the impression that your company is unorganized, out of business, or even untrustworthy.

Plus, you can’t display your Google Business Profile until you verify it yourself, lending even further to that feeling of credibility that you’re running a legitimate business.

Helpful For Your Audience

A Google Business Profile will display all the essential information your audience needs about your business in a neat little package. This includes your operating address, business hours, phone number, customer reviews, and more. With this little superpower, your audience won’t need to comb through the internet to find every detail about your business, but can instead determine whether they’re interested in your work within seconds.

How to Set Up a Google Business Profile

These days, an accurate, properly formatted Google Business Profile is more of a necessity than a luxury for any business. Shoppers don’t have time to complete deep-dive research into places they’ve never visited and are looking for the quick-hit information that a Google Business Profile provides to make their commerce decisions. So it's crucial to get a Google Business Profile up and running. Luckily, it’s pretty easy to do!

step one

The first step to making a Google Business Profile (assuming you already have a Google account) is to open Google Maps, pull up the menu, and scroll until you see the ‘Add Your Business’ button. Similar to how Google is the world’s biggest search engine, most of Google’s tools are the biggest of their kind. Google Maps is no different, and having your business automatically linked to the navigation giant will help boost your visibility.

step two

After setting your address on Google Maps, you’ll fill out all the necessary fields to populate your Google Business Profile. Some prompts include setting up a valid, local phone number, filling in your business name and industry, and adding an office address.

step three

Once you’ve completed the essential steps to establish your Google Business Profile, you’ll need to verify the listing. There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest is by entering a verification code you receive through email or an automated phone call from Google.

After completing the initial process, you can fill in the rest of your Google Business Profile with details like your operating hours, business description, photos and videos from your business, and more. Though these are optional steps to building a Google Business Profile, we recommend completing all of them.

How to Get The Most Out of Your Google Business Profile

The biggest trick to maximizing your Google Business Profile is to not skimp on any setup element. We know people sometimes struggle talking about themselves and their businesses, but plugging as much helpful information into your Google Business Profile as possible will help the page resonate with your audience. Let’s go over a few of the supporting details available on your Google Business Profile that will help make your page more helpful.

Pictures and Videos

Though not a required step for launching a Google Business Profile, uploading pictures and videos is one of the most beneficial ways to boost your Profile’s effectiveness. Images give your audience a first-hand look at your business so they can judge through your pictures if your work will fit their needs.

Pictures are particularly valuable if you sell a physical product. For example, a restaurant could upload photos of some of their most iconic dishes to their Google Business Profile, advertising themselves in a much more enticing way than just a written menu description. But a healthy mix of photos and videos will make your Google Business Profile more dynamic.

Business Description

The business description is the part of your Google Business Profile where you can differentiate your business from the competition. Here, you can write a short summary of who you are, what products or services you provide, and most importantly, what makes you different from the rest of the crowd.

You only get 750 characters for your business description, so you must be crafty and selective about what you say and how you say it. But once you find the right words to sell yourself, you’ll really give your business an edge.

Set Accurate Attributes

Your Google Business Profile will give you the option to fit additional, smaller details about your business called attributes into your page. You’ll find the attributes sections in the Business Information tab of your profile, and here you can fill out notes such as:

• What type of business you run

• Types of payment you accept

• ADA accessibility features

• Whether or not you have wifi for customers

There are other attributes you can display on your Google Business Profile as well. Though some of those details might seem small or unnecessary relative to some of the more essential features on your Google Business Profile, we promise that there are parts of your audience who will want to know this stuff. Again, the best way to maximize your Google Business Profile’s impact is to fill in as much information as possible.