Small/medium businesses, and in particular local ones, often have low budget and struggle to find a way to have their presence online and to have benefit by web-marketing.
A web site is sometimes expensive, and too much for their needing, and socials accounts become the only opportunity.
And again, this kind of business, choose the wrong one, or more often, decide to be present on all, resulting dispersive both for their efforts to post and for their followers.
Midway there is a powerful and even free tool: Google My Business !
Let’s go deeper to see Google my Business strength points and weaknesses.
We have written (the account) is given for free: yes but you have always to consider the cost of “do it by yourself” , that means that if you work for a “salary” around 30$/h, if you need need more than 2 hours to set it up, you will have a cost of little more than 60$.
Otherwise there are web agencies, this case a quotation is needed !
In Google My Business you can post (we suggest: regularly post) text posts, pics, short videos, a combination of them : a post with a pic or a video…
Followers leave their reviews, with the iconic stars from 1 to 5, sometimes adding a text that explain their judgment.
Of course more positive reviews are present, more is the boost the page receives! The so called: “Social Proof”.
Note: positive reviews must be managed with at least a few line of thanksgiving, negative ones, must be managed to reduce the negative impact on other visitors.
NEVER CENSOR !!!
Another super useful tool is the one that allows visitors to book on line an appointment or a table or a room.
This opportunity is given to specific categories.
If your business is listed in one of these categories, Google my Business will show a field that should be filled with the URL of the site/app used to have the online booking form.
All this stuff, needs of course an effort !
Good post, quality pics and videos, require time and must be done with details care. We recommend to not completely pass on this to a web agency.
If this is unavoidable, rely on rely only on those web agencies that aim to best implement your business directives.
Another point of view, that must well considered, is that like social pages, you don’t own you Google My Business page; this means that if Google decide to shut down this service, or ask for money, you have only to passively accept the consequences !
So, for this reason, we suggest to consider to back up this, with other tools, one of this must be your own website.
A free tip to obtain positive reviews, that are the pivot and strength point of this tool: when you see a very happy client, ask him/her to write a few line of his/her experience giving to your business a 5 stars judgment !
Or if you are requested about a discount, give it, but ask for a good review !
Of course, we are at your disposal to take care in the set up of your
Google My Business page!
Phone us or fill the form, we will be back as soon as possible !
But, to not be misunderstood, we give you this link,
where you can find our FREE step by step guide to set up your Google My Business page by yourself !