Google My Business is a Google listing that offers businesses a new way to organize and present their brands and locations on Google Search and Google Maps. It helps businesses to connect directly with their customers, whether they’re looking on Search, Maps or Google+.

For local businesses, creating an optimized Google My Business Profile and appearing on a Google map is key, especially on mobile, as it gives the user immediate access to all the information they need – all easily loaded into Google Maps or a GPS app. When users search for your product or service, the local search listings are the ones that dominate. A local search is when someone adds a location to the search term – such as “Visible One Singapore”. It also allows local businesses to get ratings from customers and rank higher in Google SERPS – all organically. Adding Google My Business to your overall Search Engine Optimization strategy will go a long way toward increasing your visibility and ranking higher on Google search.

Optimizing Google My Business

It’s important now and in the future to claim and much like the on-page Search Engine Optimization, Google My Business profile also needs to be optimized. For Google My Business rankings, consistency is important. It’s really imperative that you retain all references of your business as consistent as possible. Precisely, your business name, business address, and business phone number. By keeping the information consistent, your site will be known as an even more trustworthy business, which will pay off in terms of search traffic and search engine rankings. Here are some ways to optimize your profile quickly:

• Filling out the profile completely. The format should be your business name, your physical address and your phone number (it is important to keep this the same across all listings and update it whenever it changes).• Be sure to select the right categories for your business.• Ensuring that your business location is accurately represented. Drag the map balloon into your exact business location for better search matches.• Include relevant Keywords within your name and description when possible and natural.• Add data for all available sections including hours of operations.• Include appropriate and high-resolution images and videos.• Adding information about what payment types you accept.

Gather reviews from real customers

The more reviews on your Google business page and the better the rating of those reviews, the higher you will get for overall rankings and visibility as well as for click-through from the search engine results page. Have a plan and the appropriate process to ask your customers to share their experience and review your business by clicking “Write a Review” on your Google My Business page. This can help people in choosing your business over your competitor’s. The more positive customer reviews your business has online, the greater number of people will be interested and buy your product. Then it means an increased conversion and sales for your business. According to Reevoo stats, 50 or more reviews per product can mean a 4.6% increase in conversion rates and reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales. Be sure to read and reply to each of these reviews in order to promote engagement and maintain an active web presence.

Be found around the web – local directories

One of the main things that can help your Google My Business page rank higher is your company’s presence on third-party directory sites such as Yelp, Foursquare and Yellow Pages. Creating a presence in local directories and on review sites indicate to Google that your business is well established or popular in your local community. And so, while creating a listing directly on Google My Business is authoritative if you want to rank highly in the local search results, creating a listing on all the other directories related to your business focus is also very important. For consistency across the Web, be sure to list the same information in every directory such as business name, address, phone number (commonly referred to as NAP), hours, and to a lesser degree, business description.

Once you have optimized your Google My Business listing, you can expect higher ranking in local search that outranks your competitors, an increased click-through-rate to your business website, and a better search experience for the users that are looking for you online. A search user, if you can rank high, is possible to become your next customer. You can also take advantage of the tracking data (provided for free by Google) to see the number of page impressions, clicks, click-to-calls and other user insights. All of this can be used to further improve your Search Engine Optimization efforts.

Google is always committed to providing the best for all customer’s needs. Now, Google has again proved why it is the most preferred search engine. The “Book Button” feature has already been rolled out for wellness and fitness classes, and previously, Google made things a lot easier by adding a new great addition to its Reserve with Google feature allowing you to book salon and spa appointments right from Google Maps and Search. This means you can book an appointment without visiting the business’ website, eradicating further steps for a smoother experience – from discovery to booking.

Gone are the days of searching for a business, having to call to get more information about their services before proceeding to the booking process. Nowadays, it all can be done from one place — Google.

A post from Google indicated, “Starting today (Thursday), you can book appointments at spas and salons across the U.S. on Google. So that fresh haircut or palm tree-green mani is only a couple taps away.”

To get started, you have to search for the spa or salon you’re looking for (or the exact place if you already know where you want to go) on Google Maps. On the page where you usually see hours and reviews, you’ll see a big “Book” button on participating businesses you can tap on to make an appointment.

On clicking the “Book” button, users will be asked to pick a time for their appointment and fill in their details like your name and phone number. Not every salon and spa in town is going to be signed up for one of those services, but a lot of them are. If you want to just look at businesses you never knew were just around the corner that can booked via Google, you can search using Google’s Reserve With Google site.

It’s likely not a feature you’re going to use to make an appointment at your hometown salon (though you definitely can) but more useful when you’re on a travel and realize you need a mani-pedi, or maybe a haircut, or need a massage because you’re tired traveling. Sounds convenient, isn’t it? So next time you’re feeling in need of a little self-care, this new feature might come accessible and hassle-free for you! All you need is your smartphone and an internet connection.

This new feature is not just beneficial for customers, it is also for local businesses since the site provides the listings and recommendations of services to the users looking for the same type of business to book an appointment with. So make sure to complete all the details in your Google listing to boost your local SEO and capture more people in your area looking for services like yours while still weighing their options.

Undoubtedly, Google will roll out more bookable services soon in Search and Maps, but for now, revel in the fact that it couldn’t be easier to nab an appointment in just a few clicks.

Make your business to life with Google Business View! Allow your customers to explore and interact with your business like never before with the help of a 360-degree interactive tour. Although this may be seen as a more suitable service for businesses that are very visually appealing such as design companies, art gallery’s, car showrooms or nightclubs, it’s clear that just about any client-led business can give advantage from this innovative marketing tool. People buy products and services with what they see first, and if your place appeal to your customers the likelihood is that your goods will too.

Google Business View makes your entry remarkably stand out on Google by adding new features to your Google+ Page, Google Search Results, and Google Maps. It is a very powerful internet Marketing and Advertising tool that will completely change the way your business connects with customers on Google products and across the web.

Google launched Google+ also known as Google Plus service in 2011 and became one of most popular social networks on the Internet including Facebook and Twitter. Google+ wasn’t Google’s first venture into social networking. Google had made several attempts to offer a social networking service of some sort like Google Buzz launched in 2010 and it closed the next year or Google Friend Connect launched in 2008 and eventually retired in 2012 and Okrut that didn’t go very well since it was launched in 2004 and eventually being shut down in 2014.

Google+ was initially created as an invitation only system and users were required an invitation to sign up for the service. The demand for accounts was so high and later the service was made opened to everyone. Many Gmail account holders signed for the new social network website. The statistics for the usage of the social network looked very well during its first months.

Why Google is shutting down Google+ social networking website?

Google decided to shut down Google+ for consumers only and will remain available for enterprises because it is better suited as an enterprise product because the strong connection between Google+ and the company’s other services opened up a new wave of opportunities for businesses who were already advertising with Google. There are two reasons of the decision of shutting down Google+.

1. Security Issues

Back in October, Google announced that it would shut down its Google+ social network and after it discovered a new bug a software update that impacted approximately had exposed the account information of 500,000 users and approximately 52.5 million users in connection with a Google+ API. The discovery of the security API bug caused third party apps to get access to user data that were shared with the user, but not marked as public. The user data that could led to being stolen includes name, birthday, gender, nickname and more even if those users had limited access to that information. At that time, Google planned to shut down the social network by August 2019.

“We discovered this bug as part of our standard and ongoing testing procedures and fixed it within a week of it being introduced” wrote in a blog post by Google Vice President David Thacker. “No third party compromised our systems, and we have no evidence that the app developers that inadvertently had this access for six days were aware of it or misused it in any way,” it added.

Google revealed that it internally found the security bug which was shipped with November update, and was only active for six days (November 7 to November 13). The testing revealed that a Google+ API was not operating as intended, and while the bug has been fixed, it is still investigating in to the details of it.

After fixing the bug a week after it was discovered and found no evidence that anyone took advantage of the API bug and that that any profile data was misused, Google decided to expedite the shut-down of all Google+ APIs within the next 90 days. It means Google+ for consumers will now go away sometime in April 2019 due to security issues.

2. Low Usage and Engagement

Early last year, when Google decided to make design changes, experts were not in favor. At the time, Google also said that Google+ had seen “low usage and engagement,” with over 90 percent of all user sessions lasting 5 seconds or less.

Within two weeks of its launch, Google+ reached 10 million users and grown to 25 million in just over a month. Even if Google was only tracking sign-up numbers, it still appeared like a massive threat to Facebook. However, Google+ received mixed feedback that it became challenging for them to sustain its massive users. Google had tried to make Google+ a unique product but has eventually failed.

After the security issue incident, Google realized the significant challenges in creating and maintaining a successful Google+ service that meets consumers’ expectations. Given these challenges and the very low usage and engagement of the consumer version of Google+, this led to the decision to shutter the network in August 2019 but decided to accelerate the sunsetting of consumer Google+ to April 2019.

In the coming days, Google will provide users with additional information, including ways they can safely and securely download and migrate their data.

Pay per click advertising, otherwise called PPC, is a type of internet advertising where the advertiser pays just when some person clicks on the ads. This kind of advertising appears alongside the results of Internet searches. PPC is a effective marketing tool each business can use to gain instant targeted traffic to their website through the most popular Google AdWords.

Some small-medium sized businesses depend exclusively on organic search rankings to build their online profiles. Local and small businesses ordinarily work on a smaller budget, entrepreneurs often feel that putting resources into pay per click (PPC) advertising campaigns might be costly.

And yet for local businesses, the best aspect about PPC Advertising is that you can locally target the customers that are actively looking for your business. You can reach out to them while they are in the buyer mode. PPC Advertising is extremely powerful if you know how to use it rightly. It can be very complex at first, but with experience, you can see substantial growth in your business revenue.

The Benefits of Pay per Click Advertising

For businesses that are hesitant to dip their toes into pay-per-click advertising, here are some reasons why the investment may be worth your while.

Provides Quick and Measurable Results

PPC is perhaps the quickest approach to run an advertising campaign and get instant results. To simplify things, if you have a website up and running you can quickly create an adwords account, setup your ads and run them in the Google system and begin getting traffic. PPC ads can help businesses expand their income stream while their organic SEO methods are building momentum.

Another benefit is that you can conveniently measure and interpret the results of your campaigns. You can uncover which ads aren’t working and hurriedly make the appropriate adjustments to improve their performance.

Highly-targeted website traffic

Conveying diverse ad copies for specific keywords and demographics can radically elevate the quality of website traffic. PPC ads can be geographically targeted so they only appear to potential customers in your area. Targeting can be done by state, city or zip code.

Maximize the return on your marketing investment

Since you pay for PPC just when an ad is clicked, it’s anything but difficult to supervise costs, track conversions, and determine your ROI. Cost-per-conversions are important when looking at your PPC campaign ROI against other advertising strategies.

When should you use Pay per Click?

When you’re planning to get started with Pay-per-Click advertising campaign, it is very important to establish a clear objectives and goals. Remember that it is about taking risks while PPC advertising can generate a lot of traffic in a short period of time but it is costly. You should focus on conversion and ROI, rather than clicks, and you can put up a cost-effective campaign.

Well managed and optimized Pay-per-Click advertising, without a doubt, is the quickest and more controllable way to drive traffic to your website. Pay-per-Click advertising don’t have the same longevity compared to traditional forms of advertising, which can take months for the benefits to surface, with pay per click advertising your advertisement will appear on search results pages as soon as your pay per click campaign goes live.

PPC totally has a considerable measure to offer to your business. It empowers you to expand your marketing campaigns, build your brand, widen your reach and draw in more potential customers without straying out of your budget.

Let’s admit it, there’s really money online if you know the secret to online marketing. Remember, making money in the Internet doesn’t happen overnight. If you want to be successful in this virtual business, you should know the drill.

Well, you might have heard of Google Display Ads or might have used it for some time now. Yes, it plays a big role in money-making online. Yet, it doesn’t have to go stagnant. Everything in the Internet should change every now and then. As an online entrepreneur, you should innovate, reinvent, and remarket.

So, how can you remarket your Google Display Ads? Here are three (3) effective ways:

Adjust your Google Display target according to your visitor’s attributes

To generate more audience, you need to tailor your ads based on the user’s attributes, such as age, gender, etc., CPC Strategy suggests. You might be thinking that your Google Display Ads should be just generic to cater to varied audiences, yet, you have to keep in mind that being specific with your target niche can do much to your online engagement.

Optimize your remarketing campaigns

One good way to optimize your remarketing campaigns is to build a strong brand and work well with your branding. PPC Hero suggests that you keep your audience in mind while remarketing your brand. Since your brand has been around the virtual corner for some time now, your audience must have familiarized it already. So, all you have to do is to reinvent your brand and go an extra mile to win them back to your site. You can have variety of offers, images, and experiment with your entire campaign ad and then, you’ll see a difference.

Bid less for visitors who seldom view your products or never at all

Since you want to reach as much audience as possible, including those who never visited your site, bidding less on retargeting ads is a good step. When this certain group of people sees the change in your campaign ad, they might be captured by this and might start to show interest in what your products have to offer. All you need to do is to think of a better strategy to get them patronize your product, the way your other avid buyers do.