The question often comes up among new businesses:
How to add my business to google maps?
Having your business listed in Google Maps is a crucial step to gaining visibility and being able to rank locally in Google’s Map Pack.
Not only is it important to be listed on Google Maps but in order to get the most visibility from potential customers, you’re going to want to optimize your Google My Business to rank high in the local search results.
Luckily, getting your business on Google Maps only takes a few minutes of your time.
Let’s take a look at the step-by-step on getting your business up and running on Google.
To get started, you’ll want to visit Google’s official Google My Business page to create your business listing.
Creating your Google My Business account will only require a few steps, but there are a few good things to know during the account creation process.
Once you navigate to this page, you’ll see the following screen:
Enter the name of your business, as it’s listed on your website.
If you have multiple locations, you’ll want to prepend the city name so you don’t mix-up locations (and this also helps your business to rank higher in Google Maps).
If your business name is “Mark’s Shoe Store” and you have multiple locations, you’ll want to make the name of your business “Mark’s Shoe Store – Miami” for your example location that’s located in Miami.
Next up, you’re going to want to choose the correct category which relates to your business.
When you choose the primary category, you should be laser-focused in selecting the category that most relates to your business.
This will be extremely important for allowing customers to find your business in Google Maps.
Later on, once your account is set up, you’ll be able to modify the primary category.
You’ll also be able to add additional secondary categories that are related to your business.
In the third step, you’ll want to tell Google what type of business you’re running.
If you have a physical location that customers can visit, you should select “Yes”.
If you do not have a physical location, you’ll want to select “No”.
If you selected “Yes”, you’ll enter the physical address of your business.
You want to ensure that you’re entering the address accurately and that the address listed on your website fully matches the address you’re entering on Google.
If you selected “No” in the step above, meaning that you do not have a physical address that customers can visit, then you’re going to want to define which areas you service.
Enter all close-by cities where your business serves customers:
We’re almost there, just one last step.
It’s essential that your customers know how to contact you.
You’re going to want to provide your local business number.
In the best case, this local number’s area code should be associated with the area code and address linked to your business.
You also want to enter the full URL of your website:
Once you’re done, click on “Next” and finally click on “Finish”.
The setup process is now nearly complete.
Now that you’ve created your profile, you’re ready to verify your business so that it can be found in Google Maps.
In this step, you’re going to want to enter your full address.
Google will send you a postcard by mail within five business days.
This postcard will include a 5 digit number that you must enter in Google My Business to finish the verification process.
Until you enter this code, your business will not be visible in Google Maps.
Therefore, it’s crucial not to forget about this step once the postcard arrives.
And that’s it!
Congratulations – your business is now set up and ready to be listed on Google Maps.
Once you receive your verification code via post and enter it into Google My Business, your account will then be verified and live.
There’s a lot of further steps you can take to optimize your account for ranking higher in Google Maps with Local SEO.
Don’t just stop at the creation process, and ensure you get the most out of your Google My Business listing to attract more customers to your business.
Founder of Rock The Rankings, an SEO partner that helps B2B SaaS brands crush their organic growth goals. An avid fan of tennis, and growing micro-SaaS businesses on the weekend. 2x SaaS Co-Founder – Currently working to build and scale Simple Testimonial.
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Comments
As you mentioned, if you have multiple locations, it is important to add the location to it when setting up Google maps. My father has a few different locations within the same state and would like to make it simpler for people to find his business. Is there a way he could hire a company to do this process for him? He may not have the time to do all these steps with all his locations.