A commercial listing is a must-have for every property in your portfolio. But you may not be aware of the benefits a Google My Business page could bring to your property.
Formerly known as Google Places, Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool that can help any business boost its online visibility.
How? Well, if a customer searches for a business or service near their location, suitable matches will automatically appear on Google’s interactive map – called a “map pack” – in the search results.
In relation to this search, a Google My Business page is a great way to boost your prominence on Google’s search engine.
In the commercial real estate industry, property managers are not only using Google My Business to create a page for their company but are also creating standalone Google My Business pages for individual properties.
What are the benefits of using Google My Business for a property?
A Google My Business page is a powerful tool to help customers find your properties. If you create a page for individual properties, there are also the following benefits:
- Manage your information: you can manage all the information Google users see when they search for your property. Also, businesses that use Google My Business are reportedly twice as likely to be considered reputable by customers.
- Interact with your customers: you can read and respond to reviews from your customers and add visual content to further promote your property.
- Get valuable insights: you can see how customers searched for your property and where they come from, helping you plan and track your sales campaigns more effectively. In fact, Google sends you a report about how your property’s business page is performing at the end of every month.
How can you create a Google My Business Page for a property?
Creating a standalone Google My Business page for your property is easy to do:
- Login to your Google account and go to www.google.com/business. Click on “Start Now” at the top of the page.
- Fill in a few basic property details. This includes your property’s name, location information, and other such details. You may want to add a keyword in your title to help with your search engine optimization (SEO), but don’t overdo it. Something simple like “Office building for rent in New York” will do.
- You’ll also be asked to add a business category. There are several categories that could be relevant to your property. You can find out more in this official documentation from Google.
- Next, fill in your contact information and your property’s web address.
- If you have multiple properties, you can use Google’s bulk upload tool. This is available at business.google.com/manage.
After you’ve completed these steps, you will receive a postcard in the mail to verify your property’s address. Your Google My Business page for your property will not be visible until you have verified its physical location.
Once your profile is up and running, a Google+ page will also be automatically set up for your property. From here, you can add more information about your property. This includes a description of your property and any images or videos you may have.
When your property is listed as a Google My Business, you can improve your map pack rankings in Google Search by:
- Ask guests to leave reviews on your Google My Business page. To help with this step, you can even set up a “one-click” review or send your customers a Google My Business Review Form.
- Link to your Google My Business page from your website.
- Keep your listing as up to date as possible. For example, if you make any changes to your property, add new images.
This simple technique is a must for your property and is relatively easy to do. Furthermore, after it is set up, Google My Business does much of the work for you.