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Good morning. And welcome to the Monday Morning marketing Podcast. I'm Esther,
and I'm Melanie.
And today we're talking to Amanda Tento Google, my business expert, and she is here to explain why we should use Google My business. Welcome, Amanda.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Esther.
I am very excited to be here. And there is so much to talk about Google my business.
Very much so. And it was extraordinarily useful to find you on clubhouse a few months ago rapidly become my go to for when it comes to updating my Google my business background and experience. And we're very grateful that you're here today and you're calling all the way from Pennsylvania over in the States.
Yes, I live in the East Coast of Pennsylvania, but we just moved in December from the West Coast of Pennsylvania. We just moved in December from the West Coast of the United States to the East Coast.
Wow. That was a hell of a move.
Yeah, it's about 3000 miles ish, so.
And when you did that, obviously you updated your Google My Business page.
Yes, yes, I did. And when you do that, you have to re-verify. So you have to go through that verification process all again where they send you a mailing and you have to verify it.
So this Google My business lock. Okay. How many people are using it? And do you think there is something we can do to encourage people to consider it as a platform?
So only about of 50 % of businesses use it. However, if you think about it when you do a Google search on anything I would say about 96% of consumers use it. So businesses are really, really missing out, you know by not using it because they're not giving the correct information. They don't have control of their listing, and they also don't have control of their ranking. So if you're not using it, you are completely missing the boat.
So Google My business helps with your Google rankings.
Oh, yeah. And what my company TD Marketing does is we actually focus on helping people to rank number one without organic SEO, like without traditional on page off page. All of that, I can get them ranking in the top three in that little Google Local pack. If you're familiar with, like, when you do a Google search for, like, a coffee shop, it gives you the top three coffee shops. So our goal is to get them into that top three without having to even touch their website.
So that's nothing to do with the Google My Business box that you find on the right hand side when you're looking at a laptop or a tablet is it?
That is the Google My business. So that's an actual lie. If you search and there's only one result that they consider to be a Google My business listing, then that's going to show up on the right hand side. If you search and there are multiple results then they'll show up as a little box of three stacked on top of each other.
Right. A new call data or what sorry?
It's a local pack, the three and the other one is kind of a knowledge panel, but it's a little different than the actual Google knowledge panel, because the Google knowledge panel is like when you Google a brand name, for example, Target or something like that, they're going to have a knowledge panel that comes up that gives kind of like a Wikipedia breakdown. So it's a little different. But yeah
So anybody can achieve this? Anybody?
Yes. Absolutely.
On the little box or the big box on the right hand side of your screen, you see information like website, phone number. What all can people put into that?
Oh, my there's so much. Okay. This is exciting. So you can put your website, you can put your address. You can also not put your address. So if you work from home, you can also verify your business and then delete your address from your listing. And it's going to allow you to be a service based business as opposed to a location based business, which is how my listings are, because obviously, I work from home. So I mean, you can put attributes. There are many, many new attributes that Google has given us in the last year I guess now, you know, as far as we're into the pandemic, they give you black on business, women led, veteran led. And I know some of those attributes are slightly different depending on what country you're in, because there are many different, very variations. And something that I recently realised is that Canadian. Google my business listing actually display how long they've been in business. So, yeah, it's super interesting if you Google anything Canadian and you have a list of results that come up. It's actually going to show you they've been in business for seven years. They've been in business for 18 years. And it's very, very interesting that Google is kind of displaying things differently on every country. But you can also put updates. You can put events, you can share photos, you can share photos of your team, your interior, exterior, everything you can share so much on your Google My business listing.
I do have one question, and that is the website section that you find in Google my business. Is that beneficial? Is it a separate website to your own one? Or is that when you should be using instead of?
It is a separate website that Google will provide you. And basically it is just all of your Google my business information put into web page. It's not like multiple pages. It's just one flat
A landing page.
Yeah. Exactly. And it will have, like, your phone number and your address and you know, your pictures and everything. But I would recommend not using that unless you don't have a website. I do have one client who is a fence and decking company, and they just have never gotten around to doing a website because they don't need it and they know they just don't have one. So I created that for them. But other than that, I wouldn't recommend using that.
Ok. Thank you.
Okay. So would Google my business be classed as a social media platform? Because everything you just said, sharing photographs, sharing events, sharing information. Is it sort of should you update it as often as you do your Facebook page or Twitter, all of those, or is it a you build it and it's one and done and you can walk away and... No, you're saying no,
Love the shaking here.
So a lot of traditional SEO agencies will claim your Google My business listing for you as part of what they call directory listing. So they basically go and they will fill out your Google My business. They fill out your being places. They'll fill out your Apple Maps listing. They'll fill out like 150 other listings throughout the Internet to give you more authority. However, that's all they'll do. They don't actually tell you what to do with it. After that, they're like, okay, your Google My business listing is done. That doesn't do anything for you. So it's very, very important to update it regularly. Like you said, like social media. The thing that I want to differentiate between Google my business and social media is that you have page on Facebook, a business page. And let's say a thousand people like your business page right at any given moment. Your post is going to be displayed to 2% of those people, which is maybe 20 people. And if you have a business, how many of those people are actually going to be ready to buy whatever your post is about at that moment, probably zero, maybe one, maybe a half. Maybe they've been thinking about it, but they're not ready. The difference between Google My business and social media is that the people that see your Google My business listing are ready to buy, they're ready to take action. They're searching because they want to get their haircut. They want to whatever your business is, they want that right now and they're trying to find somewhere they can go and do it. The other part of that is that there are social media scheduling tools that will help you to make it easier. So my favourite is social B, and I use that for all my clients scheduling and also my own scheduling. And what that does is it allows you to schedule however far out you want for your Google My business post and not really have to think about it.
Is social B available over here in the UK, an island area?
I assume it would be. Yeah, for sure. It's an Internet based platform, so there's not really. I don't think any restriction as far as that goes
That was one of my actual main questions, It's really there's no native scheduling through Google my business is there? You have to use a third party. Do you think that's something they're ever going to find out?
I'm sure someday. I think right now they're trying to focus probably on getting people to actually use it more
Yeah probably makes more sense, but social B should be would be one. But there's no many that actually have the IPI.
Yeah, there's Social Pilot is one, and there's actually one that's pretty inexpensive. I think it's called one up app.IO And that one is it's a pretty decent one. And you can now they have couple other things that you can schedule to.
There's only one other that I've heard of called Hero Post
I've never heard about that one.
And yes, they do a deal every now and then on that for a lifetime deal of $100. But I don't know how that compares to the other ones you've mentioned. It's probably fairly limited because it;s only $100. You use Social Pilot, don't you, Esther?
Yeah. We've used Social Pilot in the past and we've never used it for Google my business. We've never connected up our our APIs on it. I know, wrapping my knuckles now as we speak, that will be on the list of every going task that a social media manager has today and a small business owner has to do because it is one of those things that you always say, oh, I must do this. I must update take new pictures of the outside of the office or the inside of the offices at your home office or your services. But it's always one of those things, too, that you're like, later, later and get pushed down the list, right?
Yes. Definitely.
What kind of businesses should be on Google my business? And if there was a priority level of the types of platforms that people should be. Obviously, it should be the ones where their audience is. But would you place Google my business perhaps first, because everybody Googled.
I would totally place it first. And the reason for that is because nobody's going to Instagram to search for a plumber. Nobody's going to Instagram to search for a graphic designer, for example, like any service based business and any location based business should be on Google my business. If you have the ability to serve your neighbour, for example, and you also have the ability to serve someone in the US like it doesn't have to be just in Ireland. It can be anywhere in the world. But you also have that ability to serve your neighbour, then you qualify for a listing and you should be absolutely using it because people aren't going to be searching for, you know, other things, anything really on social media.
And do you have to use Google ads with Google my business to make it successful outside of your local? Because I've had businesses say to me, oh, I thought that was just for local businesses if I wanted to just target people in my local area.
No, you do not need to use Google ads. That's the great part. I actually wean people off of Google ads, so they might be starting with a pretty high ad spend. And because we can get their organic listing to number one, they can then wean themselves off of that ad spend because they don't need to be there or they don't need to be spending. The other thing is that you mentioned is you can actually show up around the world in different neighbourhoods. And I want to say neighbourhoods because it's very, very important that you use. I'm not sure I can remember what you call them in Ireland, but we call them zip codes here. Their postal codes in Canada.
Yeah, postal codes.
Yeah. Okay. So it's basically that Identifier that you want to be putting in. Google gives you the opportunity to not only list your address, if you're a location based business, and if you're a service based business, you can remove that. But they also give location and service based businesses the opportunity to put in 20 different service areas. So the thing that is very important is you don't want to put in Ireland, right? Because that's not going to show up for anyone because they're like, well, I don't even know where to display this company, too. We're just not going to really probably display it to anyone. But if you put in, I want to show up in this postal code and this postal code and this postal code, it is going to display your listing to those postal codes.
Wow.
Yeah.
Great takeaway
On the flip side of Melanie's question. Are there any businesses that shouldn't or couldn't use Google my business?
Yeah. Businesses that are entirely like e commerce that have no ability to deliver products in person or anything like that, if you have no local presence or no ability to have a local presence that is, who would not be qualified?
And what about the analytics and the insights that are available on Google my business? Are they as good as their counterparts?
No, they're not that great. I will be completely honest with that one. They do not give you as much information as you probably want. I have actually had a custom dashboard built for my clients because I want them to be able to see historical information and, you know, future information to forecasting and all that stuff. And Google my business does none of that. So the back end of the insights, they do have a newer insight update that has a little bit more graphical information like you can see, like, percentages and things, but it's just not, you know, it's just not as robust as I think it should be. I actually use another reporting tool for my clients called Metrical. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of that.
I have heard of that one,
which is kind of like a social media posting. I actually only use it for reporting, which is funny, because I'm like, totally paying for something that I don't use properly, but it's okay. So I use it to pull beautiful reports. They break everything down, they make little graph, they make it absolutely beautiful. And like, 10 seconds.
So how do you spell that?
M-E-T-R-I-C-O-O-L
Oh metricool, because I wasn't sure is cool. Is that a paid for platform?
Yes, it is a paid for platform, and I got my subscription on appsuma because I'm an appsuma junkie, and I got a year subscription or something for. I think it was like $149, but I know, I think it's like, I don't remember how much it is a month. I think it's like 30 or something a month.
That's an excellent piece of information, actually, because for those people that are using it, there's really no way of measuring the success of it unless you get calls or people pay you, it's pretty much the only way you can measure at the moment.
Yeah.
Okay. Now I know you are a trainer and you're a supporter, an analyst and a provider of services in this field. But there is actually a Google My Business Academy, isn't there?
There is a Google My business a ca. I wouldn't call it an Academy or like, it's more like a course that you take and answer some questions. There's not a lot of in depth information, and I think the information that they focus on because I am certified through that, and I never talk about it because I felt like I didn't really like anything. You know, the things that they focus on are highly things that people don't actually use when they're actually using Google My business. If they focused on more of the things that are practical, that would help people to understand how they can rank. I think that would make more sense, but they focus on things like, how many listings do you need to qualify for bulk upload of your listings? Like weird things that 99% of businesses are not going to focus on
Yeah because I've also had people say to me. Oh, no, it's fine. I don't need any Google my business training because I'm doing the Google My Business Academy.
Yes, it's not the same. It doesn't actually teach oyu anything practical.
If anything, it helps lessen the fear of using a new platform. It familiarises you with the dashboard and that sort of thing, which is not a crime. But I don't find it particularly Proactive for pushing and promoting your brand using Google My business.
Yeah, there's no strategy involved. They don't tell you how to rank. They don't tell you the things that you could be doing in order to move up the ranks.
See, on the different continents, we agree
exactly.
If you could give someone just top tips, two, three top tips as to how to get started on Google My business what is the first thing that's a small business has to do?
If you're a location based business, you want to Google yourself because if they already have created a listing for you and you haven't claimed it, and then you go and create another listing. You're going to end up with duplicate listings, and then it's going to be a nightmare to especially if that listing that they've already created for you has reviews for your business. It's going to be a nightmare to have to go through that duplication merging process. So definitely Google yourself. If you're a location based business and you know you haven't claimed it, and then if you have claimed it, you need to start using it. And if you haven't created one and you don't have one already created for you, you must start by claiming or by creating it. And the other thing is you want to post regularly. So for our clients, we post three times per week and that gives twelve posts per week, per month, and that will help them to move quickly up the algorithm. Google suggests one post per week. And so when you three X that then you get three times a result.
And is like one type of post do better as in another. Is it like Facebook in videos do better or..?
So videos always do better on the internet no matter where you are. The problem is that Google my business only allows 32 seconds videos so you can't post like a YouTube video on Google my business. It has to be under 30 seconds so you could post a clip or like a snippet or something like that, and that will get you moving up the algorithm quicker as well.
That's a great place to share your Instagram stories.
Yes.
Perfect.
Is there a size you know like on Facebook? They are square, Instagrammer square, etc. Is there a size for images and videos that are being shared on Google my business?
Yes, they tend to be more of the landscape. It's not quite the same aspect ratio. It's just a little bit wider than square. I would say if that makes sense. I don't remember the listing or the dimensions. I do know that the cover photo is 1080 by 614 I do believe to get your correct cover photo size.
Okay. It's just no uniformity on any of these platforms is it?.
Tell me about it.
Honestly, I always just post Instagram square to everything because it works. So that's what I do n my Google my business. I just post Instagram square and then it goes on there and it looks fine. So.
How do we learn more about you? If anybody wants to get some support, you can help them globally can't you? With your support training and your expertise. So how do we learn more about you?
You can go to TDM/marketing.Com, which is short for the determined mom. I had a little rebrand because I had a lot of men that would approach me and say you know, I'm not a mum, but do you think I could work with you? And I was like, yes, yes, you can. So let me take that conversation off the table and will just rebrand into TDM/Marketing. Com so you can go there. You can find lots of free resources. I have an email sequence that's educational where you can learn more about Google my business over a series of, I think, 14 emails. And there is also there's just so much you can book an audit with me so I can audit your Google my business plan, you know listing and help you to understand what needs to be done. We can go through your competitors and see how quickly you can outrank them. So there's just a lot of information on there.
Fabulous. Thank you.
Brilliant. Thank you very much, Amanda, for coming on today and for joining us on the Monday Morning Marketing podcast. We'll be back next week with more Monday morning marketing podcast. Do reach out to Amanda and do reach out to us in all our socials, and we will see you next time. Bye bye.
Bye bye.
Bye Thank you.