When I work with small business owners or agents of a larger company, I see a lot of marketing basics overlooked in favor of - and rightfully so - client and customer attention, and frankly whatever fire needs to be put out right now. One of the major things that gets overlooked is online presence. Google My Business specifically. Don’t know what GMB is? Here’s what happens when I “Google my business”, Shepheard Marketing.
Everything to the left is what has been added organically as time has gone on by strategically making sure that everything I have control over online has been given as much attention by me as possible. What is on the right is by GMB page, which I created. I continue to add relevant text and images to give the searcher as much information about me as possible.
As you scroll down on the first page of Google, you will see all of the websites I have been featured on, written about or created an account for Shepheard Marketing.
The first thing that comes up is my website. If you are new, this could take a while to index, but wait it out. You should get here eventually. The second link that comes up is my membership with the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce, which I have been a member of since 2016. A couple of months before this writing, I was interviewed on Colorado Business Roundtable (obviously they have a strong presence online to come up 3rd in this list.) then you see us on Alignable, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook. Not a bad lineup for three years in business. Depending on how long your business has been around, it may take you less time.
Next up, online reviews. Depending on your industry, and whether you have a brick and mortar location or simply a service area, you will want to solicit online reviews on Yelp, Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Better Business Bureau or another industry-specific review site. An email from a customer with a compliment no longer cuts the mustard. Your reviews and ratings need to be verifiable, and online is the best way for people to measure the quality of your services. On the right-hand side of the above image, you will see that at the moment, I have 19 Google Reviews and a 5-star rating. If you click on “View all Google reviews” on the bottom, all of my reviews will open up.
Here is a great article about how to optimize your GMB page. And another on SEO and GMB tips to optimize your presence for optimal results.
We’ll get you there. Reach out so I can show you how! Email me at kim@shepheardmarketing.com, or call me at 303-999-1060.
I look forward to learning about your business and helping you take that burden off your plate.