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Google Local Opportunity Finder

Google's Christmas present for SMEs for an optimized company profile

 

 

Reading time: 5 minutes

Find out:
• Why is a Google Business Profile so important for your company?
• Which additional new features are there on Google Maps?
• How do you optimize your Google Business profile?
• How can mPocket support you?

Google Business Profile – open the door to your store online

According to a survey by the Local Marketing Institute, only 44% of local retailers use a Google Business profile. This is very surprising when you look at Google’s statistics, as 88% of people who do a local search on their smartphone visit a store that matches their search within a week. Since you are now reading this article, we assume that you are already one step further, you may have read our article about this topic and know why the GBP is also crucial for your company and how you can be ranked on the deciding page number one of the search results.
Today, the convenience of e-commerce is also expected from brick-and-mortar retail – anytime, anywhere. For local retailers, the internet is very valuable even without an online shop and offers an excellent opportunity to build personal contacts and relationships with customers, to strengthen trust and to gain loyalty. Considering this, the German Retail Association (HDE) and Google Germany launched the initiative “Zukunft Handel”, a broad and free digitization program for retailers, in September 2020.
Not only are search queries on Google itself increasing, but also direct local searches on Google Maps are becoming increasingly important and popular. With search queries such as “best mobile phone shop near me” or “best hairdresser here”, customers want to find the best business, service or locality in their current area quickly and directly.
Last week we reported about the great new features on Google Maps. Just in time for the holidays shopping season, Google is launching another free tool, the so-called Local Opportunity Finder. It is intended to help smaller, regional businesses increase their presence on Google searches and have a better visibility.
With the free company profile, you can present yourself online when potential customers are looking for you and gain valuable insights that will support you in building customer retention. List your store in the top 3 of the search results, gain visibility and win new customers.

Google search and local search in Google maps – which additional features are available?

Let me just google whether Label XY has a shop here”, “Check out Google to see if the garage is still open”, “According to Google, this is the best Italian restaurant nearby” – everybody has conversations like this or similar with friends and family when it comes to finding the best store, the most popular restaurant or the opening hours of a company. New useful features on Google Maps for the convenience of consumers on the one hand and the visibility of local retailers and service providers on the other are intended to support and strengthen local retail and smaller companies.

1. “Area Busyness” -How busy is the region where you are heading to?
2. “Directory Tab” – the table of contents for large buildings
3. “Pick up grocery shopping” – shopping trolleys in the supermarket are becoming obsolete
4. “User generated content” – rely on other visitors when choosing a restaurant

We have already presented these new features last week, but now another feature was added by Google as a small Christmas present:

Use the “Local Opportunity Finder” to optimize your profile and increase visibility and customer loyalty

Especially in the festive season, the prime time of the year regarding turnover, SMEs are supposed to receive support from Google in the form of implementable and individual suggestions for optimizing their company profile in order to increase their digital presence and their visibility. An optimized company profile pays off, as companies with such receive almost four times more website visits than companies without. But you will not only gain more visitors online: With five times more calls and four times more requests for the direction to a store from potential customers, you will also increase the traffic in your local shop.

If your business is visible at the top of the search results, you achieve more authenticity and gain the trust of your customers, which lead to more leads and traffic in-store. The algorithm works in a way that regular updated and accurate information as well as uploads of photos and publishing posts, plus a steady stream of reviews and the responses to them is signaling Google that you are active, and Google pushes your listing up. Local targeting is important in particular for small businesses. In their Google Business profile, retailers can also see how many customers click the profile, which photos are viewed how often and which keywords are used to search for the respective store – in consequence retailers can increase their sales with simple adjustments.” Markus Demirci, founder and CEO of mPocket

If you’re running an SME, don’t even question it: A Google Business Profile is a great way to literally set a landmark. It helps with local SEO, gives you the opportunity to connect with your customers and provides helpful insights.
Google even makes the handling of the Local Opportunity Finder extremely easy: After entering the company name, the retailer is guided through the next steps similar to a survey and receives quickly and easily many hints from Google how the company profile can be improved in order to win new customers. The tool is designed to be very intuitive and easy to implement for everyone.
Do you still need help setting up your Google Business profile?

Free mPocket Google Business Profile Guide

You are welcome to download our two free Google Business Profile guides, with which you first find out how you can easily create a Google Business Profile entry for your company and then optimize it so you can also rank in the top 3 of the search results and get more views on Google and win new customers.

How mPocket supports you as an SME

With the mPocket app you create a direct connection between your customers and your brick-and-mortar store. The app helps you increase your customer frequency and revenue per customer by sending review requests and reminder messages with just one click or already in the store. Your customers will find it easy to write reviews about your business, which will help you get better rankings on Google Maps and more visibility online and offline. On average, our customers receive 40% more reviews with mPocket than before.

*For reasons of better legibility only the simultaneous use of male and female language forms is not used. All personal names apply to both genders. 

Jasmin Janson

Marketing & Communication Manager mPocket

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