Create your Business on Google

To begin, visit Google My Business at google.com/business and create your free business profile. Once there, click on the 'Start Now' button to initiate the process.

In this step, you will input your exact business name and you have to chose the type of business you have. You have three main options here. Option nr.1 is Online retail, where cutomers can purchase different products via your website. Option nr.2 is Local magazine that can be visited physically by your customers. Option nr.3 is Service company, where the company "visits" its customers by providing different services to them.

First, you have to provide your domain name, then you have to select the business category that most accurately represents your business.

It can be a bit tricky because it may happen that you cannot really find the exact category where your business fits in (like in our case now), but you can modify it lately.

Enter your business location, then add your phone number. It is crucial that the address details you provide are accurate, as Google will use this information to verify your listing. Indicate whether you deliver goods or services to your customers, and decide if you want to hide your address. Unless you offer services to customers who do not need to know your business location, it is generally recommended to keep the address visible.

After entering your business location, you can already place your business on Google Maps that can help your customers to have an immediate access to your reviews, which will strongly increase the confidence and reliability towards your business in general and more specifically in your services.

To complete the process, you now need to verify your business listing. Click on 'Continuation,' which will lead you to the verification page. Verify your business on Google Maps by either receiving a call or text with a six-digit code. Enter this code on your listing to confirm.

Once your business listing is verified, Google will add your business to Google Maps.

Congratulations! Your business is already visible for millions of people via Google!

There are a few more steps before we finalize our Google Business account. First, you have to indicate your business' opening hours. You can set it day by day, also giving a more precise time interval when your business is open to customers.

You can also allow customers to send you messages via your Google Business account.

There is a good opportunity in the set-up process to describe your business to visitors. You can precise your products, services and and you can give any helpful information or details to your visitors that you think may help them to take advantage of your business.

We finally finished our Google Business account set-up. Now, you can go to Google and search for your business. See if you need to add some more details in order to get the maximum Profile strentgh.

If you click on the three little dots next to Profile strength, you will be able to edit your profile, also add your Social Media links, which was not included in the basic setup procedure, however it is an important detail.

By following these optimization strategies, you can improve your visibility and ranking on Google Maps, making it easier for potential customers to discover and engage with your local business.

You will notice that there are potentially hundreds of local listings similar to yours that appear on Google Maps. To rank highly in the Google Maps and improve your local SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you need to optimize your Google My Business listing.

To do this, access your new Google My Business dashboard and complete the following steps: