Google has given you an incredibly powerful tool, for free, to help connect your business with prospective customers within your local market who are searching on Google for the services and products you offer. That tool is Google My Business.
Given the latest trends, Google My Business is going to become an increasingly important tool to have in your marketing techstack:
- 97% of consumers search online for local businesses
- 50% of all Google searches result in no clicks
While all of the features within your Google My Business listing provide value, there are a few that shine out among the rest. Those features being Posts, Reviews, and Questions and Answers. In this blog article, we’re going to focus on the latter and walk through what Google My Business Questions and Answers are and how an all-in-one local marketing platform can help you take full advantage of one of Google My Business’s most powerful features.
Let’s get started!
Google My Business Questions and Answers
Before we get too far into our conversation, we should lay the groundwork with a few definitions as building blocks.
What is Google My Business?
Google My Business is a free tool from Google that allows you to manage how your business appears on Google Search and Google Maps. The information you add to your listing feeds into the information prospective customers see when viewing your business on Google, whether it’s your Knowledge Panel, in the Local Map Pack, or on Google Maps.
Side note: Here’s a secret that can help you outrank your competitors on Google that many don’t know about: You can use Google My Business Posts to publish content and offers directly on Google. These posts are free to create and receive prominent placement on local search results pages, helping you attract and convert prospective customers.
A 2019 study showed that 40% of local businesses have never created a Google Post, so it’s entirely plausible that your competitors aren’t doing this yet.
Want to learn more about using the features within your Google My Business listing to outshine your competitors? Register for the free webinar: Google My Business Tips & Tricks for Local Businesses.
What are Google My Business Questions and Answers?
This feature is exactly what it sounds like. Anyone who has a Google account has the ability to ask and answer questions related to your business. This is categorized as user generated content and is one of the most powerful and compelling types of content your business can have. Why is that? This content is created by others, not your company so it’s viewed in a similar light as a review. Questions and Answers allow you to display additional information about your business directly on Google, without forcing someone to visit your website to learn more. You can learn a lot from the questions people are asking about your business online and use those insights to inspire your sales pitch, marketing content, and overall education for customers.
Unfortunately, it also opens the door to possibilities where incorrect information about your business is found on Google; that is if you don’t actively monitor and correct the information being shared.
Google My Business Questions and Answers also populate the “People also ask” section in Google’s local search results pages, which can help someone further learn about your business and the services they’re searching for.
Manage Google My Business Questions and Answers with Marketing Software
A pro tip to help you manage your Google My Business Questions and Answers is to post your own!
If you already have a FAQ page on your website, add each of these to your Google My Business page. It’s perfectly acceptable to add information yourself. This way, you can make sure the most important information gets out there and that it’ll be correct. It’s also a way to help elevate your Google My Business listing if people aren’t asking any questions about your business on their own.
If you run your marketing on an all-in-one local marketing platform such as the Surefire Local Marketing Platform, you can view all questions that have been asked about your business in the same place as your website metrics, leads, reviews, content, social media, email marketing and so much more. You can also post answers from within the platform to questions the moment they come in and which are automatically populated back into Google My Business.
Being able to stay on the pulse of your business and interact with prospective and current customers helps ensure your business is properly represented online at all times.
Here’s a quick video overview of how to manage Google My Business Questions and Answers in the Surefire Local Marketing Platform.
Curious to see how much time and money you can save while managing your marketing on an all-in-one platform? Request a free demo!