Google My Business is Google’s free way to help local businesses manage their information across Google’s search results and Maps listings.
It’s how you tell Google things like your opening hours, location, phone number, etc. Google will then use this information when someone searches for storage in your area.
There is a lot of confusion around Google My Business (GMB), partly because the search engine has gone through multiple rebrands / merges of different products before arriving at GMB. You might hear it being referred to as Google Places, or Google+ Local, but likely these people will be referring to GMB.
Why is it So Important to Be on GMB?
Google My Business is your way of letting Google know all the information that Google needs about your business, and telling them when things have changed.
Google will then show this to users when they search on Google (like the image above), or on Google Maps. So you can see how important it is for your company. And seeing as it’s free you have no excuse to not take advantage of it.
What Can I Do With GMB?
Like mentioned above, if you decide to change the location of your storage facility, or change your opening hours, you can can easily update these on your business listing.
If you have storage facilities in multiple different cities, you can update these all from the same place, you don’t need to create different accounts for each location you own.
In addition to this you can update your business profile with photos, videos and other useful information. Reviews for your business can also be gathered on your listing.
One of the most important benefits of GMB is that you can receive and respond to reviews. If someone has had a great experience storing things with you, they can let the world know about the service. You can see who has reviewed you, and can respond to anyone who leaves you a review.
What Are the Benefits to Me?
The main benefit of Google My Business for storage is that your storage locations get shown in a prominent position in the Google search results and in Google Maps results when someone near you is searching for storage. This means more traffic to your site.
As the business owner, you can see in the Google My Business dashboard how people are viewing your listings and get insights about how your locations are performing on Google products.
Another great benefit for your storage company is that for potential customers searching on mobiles it is ridiculously simple for them to get in touch. All they have to do is press the call button in the search results and they will be on the phone to you in seconds.
Then once they know they want to store with you they can press the directions button in the search results, and they will get directions from their location to storage facility.
On top of this, you can see how often this happens. You can see all the different ways people interact with your company or service, how often they call, how often they look a your photos, or get directions. All this data can help you improve your business processes.
And did I forget to mention that it’s free? So what are you waiting for? Claim your Google My Business listing over at https://www.google.com/business/. You will need to be the business owner and have a Google account – then you should be good to go.
