How to get your business onto Google Maps

Continuing with our series on understanding Google and how it can benefit your business, this week on Marketing Monday, the founder of Dental Profit System, Angus Pryor will be talking about how to get your business onto Google Maps.

Transcript: How to get your business onto Google Maps
Well hello, entredentists, Angus Pryor here, creator of the Dental Profit System, and coauthor of the Kindle crushing book The Better Business Book, bringing you this week’s Marketing Monday, the weekly show designed to boost the marketing at your practice. Now, today we’re in part of a series, this is the fourth part on Google, and today we’re going to be looking at how to get your dental business on the map.

I’m just going to do a little recap for you, if you want to check out the previous shows where we looked at each of the bits of business, go to the Dental Profit System on Facebook and you’ll see the shows there, but just let me give you a recap. When you do a search on Google, if you are searching for something that relates to a business, it’ll look like you’re getting one set of answers, as here, but in fact, there are four systems that are operating.

The first is you’ve got your Adwords up at the top there, the second would be the map, then you have in the middle is the unpaid listings, and then some more ads down the bottom. And in fact for each of those systems, something else feeds into them. Now, for the maps, here’s an interesting thing about the maps, the content that goes on your Google map comes from your Google My Business page.

So that is Google My Business and so that content’s really important. Now, what is on your Google My Business? Well the first thing is your reviews, so you’ve got your review. The second thing is information about your practice and you’re opening hours and all that sort of stuff. The next one is photos, and then the final one is events, which is something that’s new in Google My Busines.

So all of this information feeds into Google My Business, which then appears when your business comes up on the map, or hopefully it does. Now, up until a year ago around 10 businesses would appear on the map, for example, if you do a search for Campbell Town dentist, then there’d be 10 businesses that would be on the map. Google changed that, I think it was last year, it might have been earlier this year, and now there’s only three, and a whole bunch of dentists are saying to me, “Angus, how do we get on the map?” Having good content in here, reviews, information, photos, and events, is really helpful.

So all of that feeds into Google My Business, but the other thing you need to be doing, and this is an interesting one, it’s actually the SEO that’s feeding into how you appear on the map. So if you’ve got SEO going, that’s an extra benefit. SEO, which is Search Engine Optimization, it’s a process in itself and it’s something that we talked about in the video last week. So that feeds into, there’s one other thing, which is like BD, Business Directories in your area. The more websites in your local area that you can get the name, address, and phone number of your business in, that feeds in with the SEO and the content on Google My Business to get you onto the map.

Now, one thing I didn’t say at the beginning, does Google announce what the rules are and how it is you get onto the map? No, they absolutely don’t, and it’s really only through trial and error that you can figure this stuff out. So there you have it, if you want to get onto the map and you want to be one of three dentists in your area, feed the Google My Business; reviews, information, photos. Even with your photos, you can be putting messaging in your photos, you know, have the photo and then put, “For a great smile, visit blah, blah, blah.” For events, that can be whether you’ve got an open day coming up, or you’ve got a promotion on, you can use that.

Get your SEO happening, if you’re not using SEO, that’s one of the services we offer, but rather than me talking about what we do, one thing to bear in mind with SEO is your provider should be able to provide you with a guarantee. As a case in point for us, we will optimize your website for 50 keywords, and we guarantee that for an eight-month period, eight of those keywords, which you get to nominate will be in first place, and another 16 will be in place 2-5. So, if you’re getting SEO done, it’s important that you’ve got some guarantees done there about the outcome. Business directories, get your business into as many local online business directories as you can, because all of that feeds into getting you onto the map.

Well, that’s a pretty decent cook’s tour of Google, and in particular the maps and Google My Business functionality, but otherwise the final thing I want to leave you with is if you are in Australia and you are looking to take your business to the next level in 2018, then you really need to check out dentalbusniness.com.au. It’s a conference that I’m speaking at, there are five of us, it’s on a Saturday, it’s in Sydney, promises to be an excellent event to give you everything you need to take your business to the next level in 2018 and beyond.

Alright, well for me, Angus Pryor, it’s signing off for this week, if you need any more information, get across to dentalprofitsystem.com and send us a message, otherwise see you next week on Marketing Monday.