Entries by Darren Stevens

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Why Your Google Business Listing is an Essential Marketing Tool

Now more than ever when your online presence is absolutely crucial, your Google Business listing is one of the most powerful (and under rated) marketing tools at your disposal. It’s more than just a simple directory listing—it’s a gateway for potential customers to find, learn about, and engage with your business. Here’s why maintaining an optimised Google Business profile is essential, what you can do to enhance your profile and how it can significantly impact your business’s growth.

Even if you never created a profile, Google or a customer may have already created a basic listing for your business. To take control, search for your business name on Google Search or Maps. If a profile appears, look for a link that says ‘Own this business?’ or ‘Claim this business.’ Click it and follow the verification steps to gain full administrative access. Claiming your profile is the only way to edit information, respond to reviews, and post updates.

Getting Started: How to Create Your Google Business Profile

If you’re starting from scratch, the process is straightforward. First, go to the Google Business Profile Manager and sign in with the Google account you want to associate with your business. Then, follow the on-screen prompts to enter your business name, category, location, and contact information. This initial setup is the foundation of your online presence. The process should be straightforward, but if you get stuck, we can always help.

Verifying Your Business: The Key to Going Live

After you’ve entered your initial business details, Google needs to verify that your business is legitimate and located where you say it is. This is a crucial step to prevent fraud and ensures your profile will be visible to the public. Common verification methods include receiving a postcard with a code at your business address, a phone call or text, or a live video verification (hopefully not the video route as this can sometimes be tricky, particularly in rural locations where there are no road signs). The available options depend on your business type and location, so be prepared for any of these.

1. Be Easily Found by Your Target Audience

One of the biggest advantages of having a Google Business listing is its ability to make your business easily discoverable. When someone searches for products or services related to your business on Google, your listing can appear in the search results and on Google Maps. This visibility is particularly important for local businesses, as most consumers tend to search for businesses “near me” when they’re ready to make a purchase. By appearing in these local searches, your business is put directly in front of potential customers who are in your area and actively seeking what you offer.

2. Boosting Local SEO

Google Business listings are integral to local search engine optimization (SEO). Google uses the information in your profile—such as your business name, location, and category—to determine when and where your business should appear in local search results. The more complete and accurate your profile, the better your chances of ranking higher in these searches. This is especially important for small businesses that rely on local customers.

3. Stand Out from the Competition

In a crowded marketplace, standing out is key. Your Google Business listing allows you to differentiate your business from competitors. A complete and well-maintained profile presents a professional image and builds trust with potential customers. It provides essential information at a glance, including your business hours, contact details, and customer reviews.

4. Showcasing Your Unique Offerings

Google Business listings also let you highlight what makes your business unique. Through the description, attributes, updates, and categories, you can showcase your specialities and the value you bring to your customers. This is where you can make a compelling case for why someone should choose your business over others.

5. Drive Traffic to Your Website

Your Google Business listing is a powerful tool for driving traffic to your website. The listing includes a direct link to your site, making it easy for potential customers to learn more about your business and what you offer (and the insights will tell you how many people are clicking on this link). The more information you provide in your Google Business profile, the more likely users are to click through to your website.

6. Trackable Insights

Google provides analytics for your business listing, showing how many people viewed your profile, visited your website, requested directions, or called your business. These insights allow you to understand how well your listing is performing and where there may be opportunities for improvement. These shouldn’t be confused with the analytics for your website itself.

7. Make It Easy for Customers to Contact You

Your Google Business listing makes it easy for customers to contact you. With just one click, they can call your business, visit your website, or get directions to your location. This ease of access is crucial, especially in the age of mobile devices, where users expect quick and easy ways to connect with businesses.

8. Increase Engagement with Messaging

Google Business also offers a messaging feature that allows customers to send you messages directly from your listing. This feature is a great way to engage with potential customers in real-time, answer their questions, and guide them toward making a purchase.

9. The Importance of a Complete Profile

A complete profile is a trusted profile. Google’s algorithm favours listings that are rich with information because they provide a better user experience. Go beyond the basics and fill out every relevant section. Key areas to focus on include:

Detailed Service/Product Descriptions: List your offerings with prices and descriptions to attract qualified customers.

Primary and Secondary Categories: Help Google understand exactly what you do. We use the Chrome extension GMB Everywhere to assess this for our clients.

Service Area: Define your geographical reach if you’re a service-based business.

Attributes: Select options like ‘women-led,’ ‘wheelchair accessible,’ or ‘offers delivery’ to answer customer questions before they’re even asked.

10. Enhance Your Profile with Photos

A picture is worth a thousand words (yes we were thinking of you Thousand Word Media when we wrote this – our photographers of choice), and in local search, it can be worth a new customer. High-quality photos and videos give potential customers a genuine look at your business. Listings with rich media receive more clicks and engagement. Go beyond static images by uploading short videos (up to 30 seconds) like a virtual tour or a product demonstration. For an advanced SEO boost, consider geotagging your photos with your business’s location data before uploading them. Regularly add new content to keep your profile fresh and signal to Google that your business is active.

11. Types of Photos to Add

Exterior and Interior Shots: Show customers what your business looks like from the outside and inside. This helps them feel more comfortable when visiting.

Product Photos: Highlight your best-selling or unique products.

Team Photos: Introduce the people behind your business to build a personal connection.

Customer Photos: Share images of happy customers (with their permission) to build social proof.

12. Utilise Google Posts to Keep Your Audience Engaged

Google Posts is a feature that allows you to share updates, promotions, events, and news directly on your Google Business listing. These posts appear prominently on your profile, providing a great way to communicate with potential customers and keep them informed about what’s happening at your business. They also rather helpfully push further down the page, suggestions of businesses that might be competitors. If you only do one thing today – with your profile – check that you have updates visible on your profile as should you not have posted one for a while it may have expired.

13. How to Use Google Posts Effectively

Share Promotions and Offers: Highlight special deals and discounts to attract more customers.

Announce Events: Promote upcoming events to increase attendance. Remember that post updates will automatically expire after the event, freeing up space for another update.

Highlight New Products or Services: Keep your audience informed about new offerings.

Share Blog Posts or Articles: Drive traffic to your website by sharing your latest blog posts or articles.

Your Google Business listing is an essential marketing tool that can significantly impact your business’s visibility, customer engagement, and growth. By ensuring your profile is complete, adding high-quality photos, and utilising features like Google Posts, you can stand out from the competition, attract more customers, and drive traffic to your website. Don’t overlook this powerful tool—optimise your Google Business listing today and watch your business thrive.

14. Build Trust with Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are one of the most powerful features of your profile, acting as social proof for potential new customers. Actively encourage satisfied customers to leave feedback by sharing a direct review link. It’s crucial to respond to all reviews – both positive and negative. Thanking happy customers shows you appreciate their business, while addressing negative feedback professionally demonstrates that you care about customer service and are committed to resolving issues. This engagement can turn a poor experience into a positive one and show prospective customers that you are trustworthy.

The holy grail with reviews is to get your score and the number of reviews to the point where you appear in the top three map results for your area and category (this is usually easier for b2b businesses than b2c, as they tend to have fewer reviews).

If you want to work out what influence say 5 more Five Star reviews would have on your overall score, it is quite easy. Let’s imagine you have a score of 4.2 stars based upon 10 reviews. This is a total of 42 stars. Add 5 more Five Star reviews and you have a total of 67 based upon 15 – taking your score to between 4.4 and 4.5.

When you ask for reviews ask the person to say who they are, who they work for, what service / product they used, how they felt about the service or product, what stood out as particularly good and would they recommend you. This leads to much more content rich reviews and influences the words that Google uses in its AI summary of your business.

15. Leverage the Questions & Answers Feature

Your Google Business Profile includes a Q&A section where anyone can ask a question about your business—and anyone can answer. It’s vital to monitor this section to ensure information is accurate and to answer questions promptly. You can also use this feature proactively by seeding it with your own frequently asked questions and providing clear, helpful answers. This saves your customers time and allows you to control the narrative around common queries.

15. Make sure that you have more than one person with admin rights to the Profile

If you only have one person as an admin to your page and that person leaves the business you could lose access to your page. Having more than one admin spreads the workload and also means that potential customers interacting are likely to get a fast response.

We hope that you find these tips useful. If it all sounds just too much hassle (and in most cases it shouldn’t be), then why not get us to manage your profile for you. For more tips on how to leverage digital marketing tools like Google Business, feel free to contact Prestbury Marketing & Consulting. We’re here to help!

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How to make the best use of Linkedin in 2025

With over one billion users worldwide and continuous updates to its core features, LinkedIn remains the go-to platform for professionals looking to connect, learn, and grow their businesses. Long gone are the days when it was just a platform to find your next job. But with ever-evolving algorithm updates and shifts in user behaviour, making […]

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The Challenges of Managing a Marketer When You Are Not a Marketer – And How to Overcome Them

Running a successful business requires bringing in diverse talent with expertise in various fields, and marketing is definitely no exception. For many business owners or managers, however, managing a marketer can be daunting, especially when marketing isn’t your forte. From understanding technical jargon to setting realistic expectations, navigating this relationship can be tricky. In this […]

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Clean Air Cheltenham seeking a volunteer to be their Publicity Co-ordinator

We are helping Clean Air Cheltenham spread the word about a volunteer position to become their Publicity Co-ordinator. The position would obviously be ideal for anybody who can share the organisation’s passion for the subject. The opportunity would enable somebody to gain practical experience in this field and demonstrate a track record of achievement. More details including how to apply can be found below.

The role of Voluntary Publicity Coordinator requires:

  • A friendly confident manner
  • The ability to think fast, laterally and creatively
  • A capacity to take the initiative, as well as collaborate
  • Experience of using Twitter, Instagram and Facebook

Work will entail:

  • Creating, maintaining and updating a media list
  • Establishing named contacts at as many local media outlets as possible
  • Setting up Google Alerts and other means for receiving relevant breaking news
  • Networking relevant news stories as they arise
  • Publicising Clean Air Cheltenham events
  • Seeking interviews with local media
  • Pitching, and writing, features for local publications e.g. Cotswold Life
  • Keeping interested colleagues in Cheltenham’s twin towns informed of activities

Time commitment: In the short-term this will require approximately 2 hours per week which will increase at times of special events.

Future plans/events: The kinds of events they would like the Coordinator to promote will range from online poetry workshops, interdisciplinary webinars (linking air quality, health, transport and technology), as well as events with a national outreach, such as Clean Air Day (June 2021) and Car Free Day (September 2021).

To apply, please email: Caroline Sherwood [email protected] with a short explanation of why you would like this voluntary position, and details of relevant experience.

Closing date: 10th February 2021

Background to Clean Air Cheltenham

Clean Air Cheltenham aims to improve the air quality in Cheltenham by:

  1. Raising awareness through an annual Multimedia Celebration of Clean Air
  2. Liaising with groups pursuing similar aims, such as cycling and environmental groups, tree planting organisations, residents’ associations, and schools
  3. Encouraging collaborative action between all agencies concerned with the quality of air in the town, principally those responsible for transport and health care
  4. Raising funds to support relevant projects

Clean Air Cheltenham recognises the critical role air quality plays in physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. The quality of the air is of central importance to the well-being of all, as well as being of particular concern to those who suffer from respiratory disease, to parents and children and to the elderly.

Membership is open to anyone over 16 years old who supports the aims of Clean Air Cheltenham. There is no charge for membership and members join through the website by opting in to receive newsletters and updates.

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The 10 things to do, to get your business in the best possible shape for recovery from Coronavirus

Many businesses are quieter than they would ordinarily be at the moment. Some are laying off staff, others are furloughing employees. But in our view this is a golden opportunity for many to do what they ordinarily might struggle to – work on the business, rather than in the business (to be clear though you cannot do this if you have been furloughed). We have put together this check list of 10 things to do, to put your business in the best possible shape for recovery from Coronavirus. Not all of these will be applicable to all businesses and they are not in any particular order but we hope that there will be plenty that will apply to you.

1. Survey your customers.

When did you last survey your customers, to gauge their level of satisfaction, discover what about your products or services they would like to change and anything that you can do to improve? Such a survey can also be a great way to capture testimonials for use in marketing or on your website. Our survey tool of choice is the Gloucestershire survey company SmartSurvey. The chances are are that you will get a better response to your survey now than in more normal circumstances (not least because of less cluttered email boxes and some people having more time), but if you are concerned about take up, then why not pledge a charitable donation for each survey completed?

2. Claim your Google My Business listing.

Hopefully most reading this will have already done this, but if in doubt do a google search for your own business and see if the listing top right has an option to “claim this business”. These listings are becoming increasingly important for all businesses, but most particularly those that attract business from the local area. For a vaguely light hearted look at the consequences of not claiming your Google My Business listing read our blog from last year. Once you have claimed your Google listing, then do the same with Bing.

3. Check how you rank against your competitors on Google My Business.

Check out Google’s own tips on improving your ranking here but in our experience we have also found it to be highly beneficial to have more reviews and a higher score. Ideally you want to be in the top three of the most relevant category for your business in local searches.

4. Consider registering your Trademark

If your brand is important to you (and who isn’t it for) then consider protecting your name by registering it as a trademark. There are other defences if people start using a name that is a bit too close for comfort, but prior registration of your trademark is likely to be one of the most effective. You may want to take legal advice on this. Our trademark was registered for us by our Solcitor clients Hughes Paddison.

5. Review your websites Google Analytics

We are going to assume for now that you will have Google Analytics on your website – in our experience most do. Equally though in our experience, far too many organisations then don’t look at these figures to benefit from the invaluable insight they offer. Where are your visitors coming from, what pages are most popular, what goals are being triggered and what traffic sources led to these – there are just some of the insights that you will glean.

6. Carry out a brand/proposition review

In this day and age, your organisation can be found in lots of different places – your own website, generally online, social media, business directories and of course your own literature. But when did you last review how consistent these are and whether they present you in the best possible light? How likely is that they way you describe yourself will resonate with potential customers. We can help with this, by giving an impartial viewpoint and an exercise we can carry out with you, can help create what we like to call a “hierarchy of messages”, that will make it much more likely that you use the most important points first going forward.

7. Review your GDPR policy

It might seem longer ago, but GDPR was introduced nearly two years ago in the UK. Most organisations at the time wrote GDPR policies to help ensure their compliance with the information requirements at the time. But how many of those organisations have reviewed their policy since – despite the fact that the data they hold and what they use it for may well have changed. Also ask yourself when your company last did any GDPR training. One of the activities you can ask furloughed employees to do is take part in training.

8. Keep prospects warm

This is particularly relevant to those businesses that are fully closed currently. Ask yourself how are you maintaining contact with people that were in your pipeline at the time you mothballed your business? Also what about new enquiries you have received whilst you are closed. Perhaps you can give those people priority when your business starts to get going again. As a minimum are you getting people to opt in to future marketing.

9. Ensure that you don’t go silent on social media

These are challenging times and it would not be appropriate to simply post the same content that you would ordinarily. You need be sensitive to the general mood, but equally now is not a time to go silent on social media. It can play a vital role in re-enforcing your businesses presence (reminding people you are there). Think about how you can use your social media to help others whether that be sharing freely expertise like we are doing here or simply being supporting of other organisations in your local area. Incidentally remember to check what percentage of your website traffic comes from social media, this will differ for each business, but as a rough rule of thumb we would say you should be getting at least 5% of your website traffic from social media.

10. Form a recovery plan

It is difficult for us all to envisage what recovery will look like, when it will happen, how fast will it be? But this is one thing you don’t want to make up as you go along. Think – what will you do first, how much will you spend and where will you spend it. What steps do you need to take to get your business fully up and running and how do you make sure that business does not fall through your grasp in the process. The businesses that come out of this the best, will be those that have spent the time creating a recovery plan that ensures they maximise the benefits of the recovery when it comes.

We hope that you have found this part one of our list of 10 things you should do to put your business in the best possible position for recovery, useful. If we can help with any of the elements of these ten steps, then please do not hesitate to get in touch.

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Marketing in uncertain times

We are most definitely living and working in a period of unprecedented change, where almost everything that we have accepted to be normal is changed for the forseeable future, “thanks” to Coronavirus. Here at Prestbury Marketing we come into daily “virtual” contact with many businesses and it has been both heartening and quite remarkable the […]

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How do you know your website is working?

This is one of the most common questions we are asked. To be clear this is not usually in the context of whether or not the site is down, but more a matter of, is it being found as well as it should be and is it making the most of the visitors it does […]

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