Clarence Fisher: Welcome back to Local Market Monopoly. I am Clarence Fisher, your host. And one thing I know for sure is that no business wants to leave money on the table, but I'll tell you if you aren't optimizing your Google My Business listing, then my friend, that is exactly what you're doing. So in this episode, we're going to discuss the importance of claiming and optimizing your G M B is what the cool kids call it. Okay. Now you know ...how to boost your organic traffic both online, but also that foot traffic inside your brick and mortar business. So I'm going to share four simple optimization tips that you can use to ensure that your listing is primed and ready to take full advantage of all this free marketing tool, man, it is so powerful. So if you're looking for a budget-friendly way that you can take your marketing to the next level this year, this is it.

Intro: You're listening to Local Market Monopoly with Clarence Fisher, uncovering the tools, tactics, and strategies the most successful small businesses used to their local market and own the block.

Clarence Fisher: Hello, my friend. Welcome back. Do you feel like there's more that you should be doing with your Google My Business listing? You're probably right. So this is what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about how you can optimize it and make sure that you get all the free traffic that is, do you all right? So when a prospect customer searches for your type of business online, if you don't know this now you know, and if you don't know the now you know, at the top of the results, of course you got your pay per click listings, but that will include the Google My Business listing, or G M B, as you will hear us say a lot. A lot of times there's only three, there's three listings there, you have the ratings and reviews, and then you have the maps that are to the right of it.

Clarence Fisher: Maps don't show up all the time, but you have your Google, my business listings up there. So you want to create a strong 100% complete listing. And there's a clue there so that your business has the best chance of showing up at the top when people are searching, but then also you get the most traffic and this is really essential. It's the first thing you need to do when you're marketing online now, especially for local businesses. The very first thing that you need to do is claim your, Google My Business and, and get it verified. And if you haven't done that now would be the time to do that. Kristine, if you will, if you will please put a link in the show notes to the Google My Business center where they can get verified and, or make sure that your listing is verified.

Clarence Fisher: All you have to do is just click the link. And now that you have that open and you have this playing, let's go ahead and go through these very simple optimization suggestions I have for you. Simple, simple, simple, but I did not say that it's going to happen in five minutes. So it may take a little time. You may have to come back, but the number, the number one thing you want to do is ensure that all contact information is accurate all the directories around the internet point to Google first. So when we're trying to make sure that all directories, that a business and is in multiple directories, we will get a Google straight first because the other directories are looking at Google. But then also Google is saying, Hey, if these other directories don't match what we have, then we're not counting that.

Clarence Fisher: We're counting that as a totally separate business. I'm telling you it is crazy for instance, and this is going a little bit deeper than what I, I was planning to today, but you're worth it. So if on Google My Business, your address is 1313 South one 39th, suite four. Okay. And in Google My Business it is suite is spelled S T E. And then in Yahoo, it's spelled S U I T E. Google says that's two different businesses. So you have to make sure number one, that Google is how you want it. And then when you go and open, put your business in other directories, you want to make sure that it says what Google says. So that's getting a little ahead of ourselves, but number one is to make sure, go back to Google My Business. Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry. Go back to Google My Business.

Clarence Fisher: Make sure that every piece of information there is accurate, every single piece of information. One of the biggest things that we see is, one of the biggest mistakes that we see as marketers will stop with just the name, address, and phone number. Hey, her name, address, phone numbers. Okay. The hours are correct. Okay, great. I just need a place to get reviews. That's it? Well, when you're in there, I want you to look at the homepage and kind of scroll down towards the middle bottom. You will see a percentage there. You want that to be 100%. Okay. And in order to get, make that happen, you're going to fill out a lot more than just your name, address, phone number. You're going to fill out business hours. You're going to fill out your web address. You're going to give a description, a really nice description of your business.

Clarence Fisher: You're going to enter the services and the products that you sell. You're going to feel it all out. The number, the thing that will give you the biggest shot of showing up. Number one for your business in your market is to have a 100%. And it can be kind of elusive. If Google has a glitch one day, I mean, we've had these, these issues sometimes where it gets to 99% and it's like, come on, everything's filled out, come on. What are we missing? And you're just trying to get that 100% by try your very best, okay. Fill out every, I said every thing, okay. Number two, select the correct business category and sub category. You can only have one primary category. So make sure that it's as relevant to your business as possible as relevant to what people are searching as possible first to your business.

Clarence Fisher: Not necessarily, you know what people are searching, but to your business. And then you can have a sub category or I believe two. Okay. And then number three, here's another biggie photos. Okay. A lot of businesses skip this, but do you know that the Google My Business listings that have photos get 35% more clicks than those who don't. And then also Google won't tell you this, but we see it all the time. Businesses that have the most photos compared to their competitors rank higher, and then also on your photos. I, and now I will get this question all the time, which is, should we spring for professional photos? And here's my answer. If you can afford professional photos, spring for professional photos, because you are still selling to an audience, okay? You are still selling to visitors. When people come and visit your Google, my business, and they're looking through your listing, you have professional photos of you or your staff in action, you know, around the office and all this stuff.

Clarence Fisher: It just looks great. But if you do not, if you don't have the budget, don't worry about it. Just take your cell phone, which takes great pictures and put them up there. We have a great episode, Kristine, if you'll put the, the link to the episode with Mike Tedford, photography who, and we talk about this about getting great photos for your Google, my business, put that in there, and that will give you a roadmap on getting great photos, but you want to add photos. And the number four, number four, this will be yet for today is in encourage customer reviews and respond to them. How to respond to good reviews and bad reviews. We also have a link to there as well. Kristine's like, look, man, you could have told me about all of this. I'm sorry. It's just getting to me. So we can link to that as well, please.

Clarence Fisher: How does respond to good reviews and Barbie? We have our week, we have a bunch of episodes on reviews because they are so important. There's one with Tyson where Tyson Reuer where his business got, I don't know, like hundreds and hundreds of reviews in such a short amount of time. So it's great. But according to bright locals, right? local.com, local consumer review survey, 90% of people who read 90% of people read reviews before purchasing. And it's been that way for a long time. Back when we used to kind of shout out that stat, it was like 80% or something like that. But now it's 90%,. 90%, which is crazy as a business owner. You think, Hey, people believe people that they don't even know about. That's your business. So make sure that you're getting reviews constant every now and then you may get a bad review.

Clarence Fisher: That's fine. If you have a system in place to continuously get good reviews, then you're going to be okay. It's going to push those down. So to roll it back. Number one, ensure that every single piece of content on there is completed. It has to be done. That's going to give you the biggest chance of showing up at the top. Number two, select the best primary category that you can. And then you can have your secondary category add as many photos. As a matter of fact, I would create a system to add photos regularly to your Google, my business. And if you really want to get jiggy with it, you can actually have talk to your web person. They can have your, if you have a web, a WordPress blog or WordPress website, you can have your blog auto-post to your Google My Business, which will give you even another place for your content and get that, have that refreshing.

Clarence Fisher: That's. One of the things that we do is have that fresh new content going to the GMB, which way do you think Google says, Oh my goodness, they really stay on top of this. So we need to keep, keep them on top. And then number four, always encouraged customer reviews, get a system in place. If it's nothing more than that, the whole team know that when someone says, I am so happy with you, you need to get a review right there. Oh my goodness, this is! Get a review. Get a review. All right. So hopefully that helped. If you know someone that this will help feel free to pass it along and share it with them and feel free to rate, review, and comment on the episode. Really do appreciate it. If you want a little bit of training to help you go start going along the path of owning your local market, kind of dominating that block, dominating the block, own the block, not dominating the block. Don't be a mini, a mini weenie, but you can still own the block would be pretty cool. Go to localmarketmonopoly.com. We've got a training there that will get you on your way. And then also, if you want to take a step further at the end of that, you'll have an opportunity to get a custom marketing blueprint specifically for your business designed absolutely free. All right. So till next week, so glad you came back this week. Thank you. All right, let's go do it!

Intro: We appreciate you listening to Local Market Monopoly. Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ClarenceFisher.com for more resources that will help you dominate your local market and own the block.