Using Google My Business -EP 002 of “The Marketing Hub”
On this episode of The Marketing Hub we have marketing consultant Christina Clarkin from MX3 talking about Google My Business as a marketing tool; the benefits, how to set it up and maintain it.
The Marketing Hub series has experienced marketing professionals sharing their expertise, helping you to improve your marketing knowledge and grow your business.
The host, Paul McDermott, owner of video agency, Social Video HQ is right there with you learning and hopefully demystifying marketing along the way.
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Transcript
Today on the marketing hub,
we’re talking about Google My Business
and the merits of using it
as a marketing tool,
and I’m delighted to say I have marketing
consultant Christina Clarkin
here today from MX3 three.
Hi, Christina. Hi, Paul.
How are you today?
Not too bad.
Not too bad on this sunny day,
I know I’m
in the yellow and everything.
It’s a great day out there.
So thanks for having me on.
I’m very excited to be here.
I’m delighted to have you.
And so we were just talking recently
and you were talking about
the merits of Google My Business.
So can you tell us
what Google My Business is
and the benefits
of using Google My Business?
Sure. Absolutely.
So Google My Business is a free business
listing available on Google.
And you have probably all come across
It appears on the search,
on the search engine results
page on the right hand side.
And also in maps.
So you might have come across to say
if you’re searching
for a restaurant in your local area
and you Google it on your phone
and it comes up as a listing
and you have the option
to look at the reviews
and looking at a brief
bio about the establishments,
and you can click on the website
or look at their opening hours.
So that’s what I’m
talking about here today.
And it’s free to use for all of us.
We have this available to us
if we have a Google account.
And so that’s one of the first
benefits of it Paul.
And then the other benefit
is that it’s highly visible.
So if you have a Google
my business account
and your visibility for your business
just goes up and above
in terms of where you rank on Google,
particularly if you get your customers
to send reviews to you.
And I’ve seen this
with our own client base
within a short period of time.
If we have
a significant number of Google reviews,
come through our search engine results.
We tend to be ranking at number
one and number two
within local packs,
say within Wicklow or Kildare,
which is superb and it’s brilliant.
And it really helps the organic traffic
coming through to the websites.
But for a customer,
it’s a fantastic resource
because it gives us information
at a quick glance
as to what I’m going
to use at restaurants.
Again, as an example here about what
the restaurant is offering
in terms of cuisine,
what are they’re opening hours,
we might be able to see their menu
and we might be able to see, you
know, OK,
do they have a five star review?
What’s their price point like?
So before we even go on to the website,
we can have a quick
scan of it see where it is
location wise in terms of where we are.
So from a localized
marketing point of view,
there’s huge benefits to be gained here.
And it’s just convenience,
which is what we’re all looking for
at this point in time.
But we’re all impatient.
I would backed up because I used
Google my business
all the time, because you’re right,
it’s at the top of the search as well .
Yeah.
And it’s a great way
of seeing reviews and everything.
And just how would a business
go about go about setting up.
So Google my business
to set up a super easy.
So all you have to do
is have a Google account
and then you go to Google dot
com forward slash business.
And Google will take you
through the steps
that you need to take to set it up.
So you put in your telephone
number, your Web address,
all the essential business information.
And then what happens then
is you go into a verification process.
So what I mean by that is
and some of you might
have got this already, but
you’ll get a postcard in with a code
or you will get this through
an email or a text message,
whatever your preferences.
And what this does
is it verifies to Google
that you are based at that address
so that they will know put you
at your business address
and they will host
your Google my business from there.
So this can take maybe
about a month to do.
So if you haven’t set this
up, I’d recommend
that your actions is to do that.
And and just follow that process.
And and and then if it’s a
if businesses have done that already,
because I do know
you’ve got to update us as you go.
Yeah. OK.
So if businesses
have your Google business
account already,
and if businesses have Google
my business account already,
what you need to be looking at is
there’s a post section on the account
within the post section.
You can actually send
updates like what you would do on
social media, such
as Facebook and LinkedIn.
You can actually put your posts
in there with one or two hashtags
that are relevant to your business
and a link to your website
or a link to call you
whatever it might be.
So you should do that
every week without fail.
Update the posts.
Update your videos and photos section.
There’s an area where you can upload
photos, so say it’s restaurants.
You can upload some photos
of your cuisine, your menu.
But a top tip that I want to leave
you all with today
is that if you are a business
and you have your account there,
but you haven’t gone onto in some time
Please go on and check it,
because when the pandemic hit,
Google actually marked
a lot of businesses
are temporarily closed.
And I’ve noticed myself
a lot of service businesses
within the hospitality
sector are still marked
with temporary closed,
even though they’re open.
And for me, as a consumer,
put me off actually going
and ringing to make an appointment.
So it’s really vital
that you take responsibility
and go on and have a look
and make sure that it is set up as open.
And if not,
you just go into the dropdown menu,
select open and save it.
And there you go.
That’s great, Christina.
That really is a top top tip,
because I know that like
looking at Google over the last year,
I have seen businesses
that have been marked
as temporary closed.
So that’s fantastic as a tip.
And just before we let you
go, could you tell us a little bit
about MX3?
Your typical clients
and how people can
get in contact with you? Brilliant.
So our business is MX3
and it stands
for marketing experts by three.
So it’s made up of myself, Aidan
O’Connor and Jim Kelly.
And we basically believe
in smarter marketing strategies.
That’s what we’re all about.
So if you go on to our website,
mx-3.ie ,
you will see our process
and how we approach marketing
to make it smart,
efficient and deliver results to you.
And if you would like to contact me
also on a one to one level,
I would love to hear from you.
You can contact me
at my LinkedIn address, which I’m
sure is tagged here, and also by email
a christina@mx-3.ie
That’s great, Christina.
Thanks very much for your time today.
Thank you so much for having me.