How to get your business on Google
I am about to teach you how to get on google my business. There are many forms of getting on google when it comes to your home service trade business. You can get blogs to rank on google, you can get videos to rank on YouTube (google) you can get on Google Guarantee, you can pay for google ads, or you can get on Google My Business, GMB. In this article what I want to show you is how to get verified on google my business.
This may not shoot your business to the top ranked spot on google my business, but it is the first step in getting your business on google. The most important part about getting your google my business account set up is making sure you get verified.
What is google my business
Go to google and search for a provider that is in the same home service trade you are in. For example type in “Landscapers” or “pool service and repair.” You are probably already familiar with seeing the red ballons pinned on the google map of your area. This is google my business. My job is to show you the proper way to get on GMB.
Two steps
There are really only two steps that you need to know in order to properly get your business listed on google my business. The first one is to go to the google my business page and start the prompts. We are going to go over these in greater detail below, but if you are just here for a quick answer, that is step number one.
The second step is to get verified. Google is going to request your business address. This is not to post it on their site. Most of us home service trade professionals work out of our personal residency and dont wish to have that information floating around on the web. The request is so that google can send you a verification post card.
Being Verified on GMB
In order to even have a shot at being seen on google you need to make sure that your business is verified. During the questions that google asks you when setting up your business google page they will ask for your home address. Once they have this address they are going to send you a verification post card. This is the most important part of setting up your google my business account.
Once you receive the google my business post card in the mail follow the prompts. Google wants you to return to your GMB account and enter the six digit code on the postcard into your listing. This is googles way of verifying your business. You will not be seen by anyone on google EVER, if you do not verify your business.
Step-by-step
If you are the type of person that quickly understands how to do things, go ahead and get it done. If you want to see the step-by-step process of me listing my own business on google my business, here we go. Go to the google my business page Here.
Enter your business name
The first question google is going to ask you is, “What is your business name.” Make sure that you do not select a business that has a similar or same name as you. If your business is not reconized by google and you do not see it on there select the top prompt of “create a business with this name.”
Choose your business type
Being that we are a home service trade business we want to select the last prompt of service business. We make visits to our customers houses.
Enter a business category
Google is asking what trade you are in. Make sure you select the correct one.
Where do you service your customers
Here google wants to know what cities or towns you work in. Enter a town you do business in and select it. Repeat this process over until all the areas you service are entered.
Contact phone number and email
In order to do this step properly you are going to need to have a website. If you do not have a website you can get one for free using the srvcly website. See that how to video here. So once you have your website built using srvcly follow these prompts.
Go to srvcly and sign in
Under your dashboard select share my business
Copy the link.
Return to the google my business page and paste it your link here.
Enter your phone number.
Enter your mailing address
We already went through this once but Ill do it again for those of you who like to bounce around blog posts. Google is asking for your address so that they can send you a verification post card. When you get this card you will punch in the code to your google my business account. You will then be verified and will be visible on google.
This is NOT to show your customers your address of operation. In fact you can choose not to show your address in your profile. If you do not add your address, you will not be verified and you will not be seen on google by potential customers.
Verify your phone number
Now google is going to verify your phone number. Send the code and then enter it. Easy.
Add your services
Here you are going to want to add the services that your business has to offer. I personally like to add custom services and write them in a way that a customer would write them if searching for the service on google. Add as many as you want.
Business hours
Here you are going to want to slide the toggle from closed to open and then enter your hours of operation on each day that you are open.
Add messaging
Your going to want to turn this on. You want to make it as easy as you can for customers to contact you in any way that they can.
Add a description
Make sure that you use this area to communicate to your customers. Be personable. Dont try and fake this or make it seem over “professional.” Speak to your customers in this discription as you would if you were pitching them on their door step.
Add photos
Go nuts here. add as many photos as you can of your work. Before and after photos are great. If you dont have any photos of your work, take some time and take some good quality pictures of yourself. We made business tshirts and took pictures so that we could upload them to our website we built using srvcly.com. If these are the only photos you have, that is ok. Add more as you do work. Dont underestimate this step, photos are huge when it comes to customers looking to hire.
Claim your FREE $500
I would suggest claiming this at some time during your operation. The most commonly asked question of all home service trade business owners is, “how do you get clients.” This would be a great place to start learning. If you dont have money and dont want to do this then just skip it like i did. But I do think at some point you should try creating ads on google. Just so you know.
Visible upon verification
So once again, no one will be able to see any of this information until you verify yourself. Once the card comes in with your code enter it and BAM! You will have completed your very first step in getting your business listed on google.
Thats it
I hope that you find this information helpful. As I stated earlier, google is a beast to learn. There are so many different ways to be seen on google but this, as a business, is going to be your first step getting listed on google my business. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me with any questions.
