Your Google My Business profile is one of the most effective ways to attract new customers to your painting company who start their search on Google. The information contained within your GMB listing is the data that Google displays in its Google Maps results. Your organic painting company marketing strategy needs to be developed around your GMB listing if you want to reach the top of the local Maps results.
Information like your business name, address, contact details, hours of operation, customer reviews, etc. – all of this is pulled from your Google My Business listing. While there is no cost to claim and build-out your listing, it takes a special skill-set and level of experience and know-how to optimize it correctly so it is displayed at the top of the Maps when potential customers are looking to hire a painter in your local market.
We want all of our painting company marketing to fully understand what we do to help improve your Maps position. We also believe in full transparency so we have put together a list of five tips to leverage Google My Business, helping to attract new painting customers.
1. Optimize Your Business Description
Many business owners will simply complete their Google My Business details, including the description, without any thought or strategy behind it. This is expected though, as their focus is on the business and not on SEO best practices.
This is why most GMB business descriptions aren’t properly optimized. We often see the biggest jump in rankings by optimizing the description based on the location and surrounding areas being targeted as well as the keywords and search queries we are trying to rank for.
It’s not as easy as it might sound. There is a very special skill-set requires to see significant results. Our painting company SEO campaigns are well throughout and they include detailed planning with long-term results in mind.
Google My Business profile optimization isn’t a one-and-done task. It’s an ongoing process that we constantly monitor and make slight adjustments to, and oftentimes it’s those smallest of adjustments that lead to the largest gains in the Google Maps rankings.
Our team of painting company SEO experts understands what it takes to optimize painting company descriptions in GMB – it’s the only industry we focus on. This allows you to take advantage of our expertise in your industry, providing you with faster results.
Reviewing your contact details might seem like a very basic tip, but you would be surprised at how many businesses complete their Google My Business listing and then never revisit it. Over time a phone number could change, hours of operation may be adjusted, or in some cases, the actual business location changes.
Not updating this information on the GMB listing can negatively impact the painting company search engine optimization effort. What if a potential customer who comes in contact with your listing cannot get in touch with your business due to incorrect information?
They aren’t going to go out of their way to look for another phone number or means of contact. They are going to simply find another option. It takes two minutes to verify your information is complete.
Now, we understand that sometimes a painting company is focused on operations, and updating details on the Google My Business listing isn’t the top thing on their to-do list. That is why it’s always one of the first things we check during the optimization process. Correcting a slight oversight in the past can make a big difference.
It’s a good idea to do this again quarterly at the very least. The few minutes it takes can quickly patch a potential problem.
3. Create a Google Review Outreach Campaign
Customer reviews left on your Google My Business profile have a positive impact on your painting business. There are many reasons why actively soliciting your past customers for painting company Google Reviews is beneficial:
Help Convert Leads: When someone looking to hire a painting company comes in contact with your Google My Business listing one of the first things they will notice is the number of reviews you have and your average rating. It’s very prominent information in the results, and having a lot of reviews makes a potential customer feel confident about contacting your business.
Positive Impact on Google Maps Ranking: Reviews – quantity, frequency, and rating – are a signal that Google’s local search algorithm takes into consideration. So, having a lot of high reviews and continuing to accumulate them consistently will greatly benefit your local SEO and position in the Google Maps results.
Contribute to Higher Click-Through Rates: Having a high number of reviews can help you attract more website traffic if you aren’t in the top positions on the Maps results. For example, a customer is going to notice a business in position four with 100 reviews more than a top position with a dozen painting company Google reviews. This is a great way to still generate leads even if your business isn’t on the top spot.
While this can seem overwhelming at first, don’t worry – we have systems and strategies that help automate the entire process, from the initial ask once a painting job is completed to the follow-up until we secure the Google review.
4. Regularly Publish Posts with Hard-to-Resist Offers
One of the newest Google My Business features is its “Posts” option, which allows you to post little updates of 300 words or less that display on your GMB page. These can also show up in the search results, so it’s a good idea to publish them regularly.
Doing so can help you attract more attention to your painting company listing. Each listing also allows you to include a call-to-action button. For a painting company, the “Get Offer” is a great choice and you can direct those interested to a lead capture form that offers a free painting job estimate.
This is just another Google My Business features that can be leveraged to generate more leads for your company. It’s a good idea to keep your Posts timely, as they expire after seven days. You can also set them to expire sooner, which can be helpful in the event you want to run a very limited promotion.
It’s just a simple extension of the overall painting company local marketing strategy that contributes to the main objective of generating as much local painting leads as possible. This should be considered another type of social media feed-type post. Short messages and offers designed to capture attention and push the customer to convert – a lead submit or a phone call.
5. Activate “Messaging” for Google My Business
What is the number one preferred method of communication these days? If you said, “text messaging” you are correct. Nobody uses their mobile phones to make calls these days – it’s all SMS communication.
Don’t you think there is a good chance a lot of your potential customers have the same preference? More than likely, yes, and if you aren’t offering text messaging as a way to contact your business you are missing opportunities to close more deals.
Most Google My Business profiles are set up to offer potential customers two options: visit their painting company website or call them directly. Most are also unaware that you can easily set up text messaging as a contact method within the GMB settings.
It’s simple. You enable the option and provide a mobile number to receive incoming requests and reply from. Your number is never displayed. It’s only used as a way to facilitate the back-and-forth texts.
This works very well with mobile traffic. Someone interested in hiring your painting company might not want to call, but they will gladly send a text message. It removes a previous barrier and will result in more leads for your painting business.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, your painting company’s Google My Business profile is very important. It’s one of the most important tools we use in our organic painting company marketing strategy. Knowing the ins and outs of GMG profile optimization is key to ranking high in the maps and driving traffic to your website as well as phone calls and text inquiries – all from local customers that have an immediate need and are looking to hire a painting company.
Google My Business is just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to online marketing, and we can help your painting business with everything from SEO and PPC to painting company web design and content marketing.
If you are interested in a free consultation and online audit, contact us today and our team of painting company marketing professionals will walk you through the strategies and processes we use to help painting companies across the country drive more business from Google.
