Owning a local business in Kenya and you want to do digital marketing?
You need to have a google business profile.
Yes, it should be on top of mind even before you think of having a website or social media profile.
But why?
- Google business profile enables you to leverage local SEO.
You will be able to rank for locally related keywords eg ‘loans in kimende’, ‘insurance agent in Kimende’ etc
For demonstration, I did a Google search for ‘loans in Kimende’.
The first search results show that Google is favoring map results instead of websites for this.
All the map results have GBP profiles set and optimized for the term loans.
For example, you can see that Equity bank Kimende has the term ‘loans’ in its GBP. It appears as the first nmap result because of the many Google reviews it has received though they are not that great (3.3 out of 5.0)
Mini Savings Loan Ltd has the term loan in its name. It appears second because they have highlighted the term loan as important in their name. They however have no Google reviews so far.
Dimkes Sacco Society has the term ‘loan agency’ as one of its services. Though they have good reviews at 4.5 they are not that many.
- Give directions to people easily.
Your customers are able to land to your business site with ease thanks to the Google map locations and directions.
You are able to upload images of the business surroundings
Again using my example of ‘loans in Kimende’, I can see that in my map pack, I can get directions to each of the businesses by just clicking on directions. This will take me to Google maps where I can be directed to each of the businesses.
- Enter information eg phone number, website, times when business is operational
- Get reviews about your business. This will help you know what people are saying about you. You need to espond to all these reviews whether they are positive or negative. Reviews do help in ranking your business on maps and search.
- Get information about your business go out there through posts
NCBA does a good job in replicating their social media posts on google business profile such that their messaging reaches more eyeballs both on social media and also on search.
- Do not have a website but could do with a one-pager
If you do not have a website, you can use the one pager website provided by Google business profile. In this case, your business will have a url with business.site in it.
Say for example that my GBP name is James hardware. Then my url will be Jameshardware.business.site.
How to best optimize your Google Business Profile to rank for local keywords
Here are tips on how you can best improve your google my business ranking both on maps and search.
- Complete the business profile
- Add a question and answer section
- Add the services sneaking in your keywords
- Add your products
- Post oftenly
- Get links to the profile.
- Get reviews. You can message/email your old customers to review your profile