Rank #1 On Google With A Google My Business Listing

Whether you run an online store or a brick and mortar storefront, a Google My Business listing is a must have if you want to rank #1 on Google.

With a Google My Business listing, you will show up in search results when people are searching for your business – whether or not your website ranks #1 for your business name yet. Not only will you be discoverable, you’ll also build trust through having reviews front and center.

Rank # 1 On Google With A Brand New Website

Here’s an example of search results for a website we launched for our client Mando one month ago. Since the website is brand new, there’s no way it will show up at the top of organic search results right away. 

We do have ads running to ensure there is something visible when people search for it, which you see at the top here. Without a paid ad, there would be nothing related to this business until the third search result. This is after one month of allowing Google to crawl it and putting in place strong backlinks, and it’s still only the third organic result.

This is where the Google My Business listing comes into play. You can see here the map where the first result shows Mando with a quick link to the website. So, even without our paid ad, Mando would show up first due to the Google My Business listing, rather than third as a general search result. 

This was even more vital in the first few weeks of the website’s life when it was not even the third result, but was actually further buried on page two. 75% of people will never scroll past the first page on a Google search. 

Stand Out At The Top

Even if you have an established website that ranks first on Google for your business name, having a Google My Business listing is still a great idea since it displays with much larger prominence on the results page with photos, reviews, and quick links to your website and other contact options.

You can see in this example from our own business, we do rank first for our business name and the entire first page of results are all our profiles. However, the Google My Business listing at the right is much more engaging and prominent.

Build Trust With Potential Customers With A Google My Business Listing

More than search result rankings, having a Google My Business listing builds trust with potential customers through reviews. Research by Think With Google finds 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Here’s an example from our colleague Laurens Antoine, a headshot photographer in San Diego.

He has an astonishing 367 reviews on his Google My Business listing. This goes a long way in building trust with potential new customers.

Google provides free marketing tools to help you solicit reviews from your happy customers. We always recommend setting up an email automation to ask for reviews a day or so after someone makes a purchase. These could also be sent manually from your personal email depending on your business. Just be sure to include a direct link to your Google My Business listing.

How To Set Up A Google My Business Listing

Now that you understand the importance of having a Google My Business listing, follow these steps outlined on Hootsuite’s blog to set up your account.

Once you’re done setting up your listing, be sure to fill out as much of the information fields as possible, including photos and contact information. All of this information will help you improve your search ranking. See Hootsuite’s 8 tips for optimizing your Google My Business listing here.