Living with and through the pandemic has seen many changes to our everyday life and especially to your business’s online presence. With lockdowns and social distancing, there has become a greater reliance on searching for services online. Home delivery of everyday products and services have seen a huge jump in popularity in the last year. How can you ensure that your business is taking advantage of this new trend?
In the video below, Straight Up Digital’s founder and resident SEO guru, Chris Bindley, will explain how local search has changed in the Pandemic, especially to your maps listing (aka Google My Business).
Near Me Searches
During the pandemic, we saw a huge increase in searching “near me” services like food (hamburgers near me) and goods and services (surgical masks near me). Companies like Uber Eats and Deliveroo were inundated and didn’t have the capacity to deliver. This led to companies looking at the option of delivering the good themselves to help meet the demands.
Opening Hours
During the peak of the lockdowns, the search for “opening hours” increased as consumers weren’t sure what businesses were open and, when they were open. Many food service businesses closed initially and then slowly morphed into takeaway and home delivery services. The “open hours” search became an extremely important way to communicate to the consumers they were back in business.
Directions Requests
With so many business’s closing during the pandemic, consumers had to move out the usual comfort zone and shop in new territory. Directions Requests went through the roof and it became vitally important that company details were updated to the current location so that new customers were able to find them. Something as simple as having the correct address details in your Google My Business listing could have been the difference between getting a new customer for life or annoying someone enough to have them blacklist you.
Phone Calls
More now than ever customers are calling businesses directly from the details provided on the Google My Business listing. Much like the address details, its important that you have a current phone number listed so that you can be contacted.
Tips for setting up your Google My Business Listing
- Claim your listing.Google your business name, find and then claim the listing. If you can’t find your business, then go through the process of creating it.
- Make sure that all your details are correct – people won’t be able to find you if your contact details are wrong. – Address- Phone Number- Opening Hours
All these need to be current and updated if they change. - Use your Google My Business as another social media channel. Post in there as often as possible and have customers review your services (it helps your SEO!).
There is no doubt that living through a Pandemic has changed the way we do many things and embracing this new world “Google My Business” order in a few short steps, you can make sure that your business is taking advantage of every online search opportunity that comes its way.
Making these changes can be done very quickly and easily, if you have any questions or need some help in making your business more visible via your My Google Business listing please don’t hesitate to reach out to the Straight Up Team.
About Straight Up Digital
Straight Up Digital is a full service digital marketing agency based in Burleigh Heads, Gold Coast, Australia. We specialise in Web Design, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Social Media, Paid Ads (AdWords & Facebook Ads), Email Campaigns and Video Marketing.
Straight Up by name. Straight Up by nature. We prefer to tell it how it is and we aren’t afraid of the difficult conversations with our clients. Our goal is to become the most transparent and results focused digital marketing company of the third millennium!
We have been helping businesses for over 10 years across a variety of industries including restaurants, real estate, construction, manufacturing, certified trades, professional services, podcasts and events.
Whilst based on the Gold Coast we service clients all over Australia and around the World. If you have any questions about your website, social media or lead generation please get in touch.