Mange your Google Business Profile with Sked Social

Manage Your Google Business Profile With Sked Social

April 20, 2023
By
David Olsen

A well optimized Google Business Profile can significantly enhance site traffic, lead generation, in-person visits, and online orders.

For agencies and brands working to optimize the online presence of a business, the importance of actively maintaining a Google Business Profile (GBP) is undeniable. However, simply claiming a profile is not enough; leveraging its potential for maximum visibility in local search is crucial. 

A well optimized Google Business Profile can significantly enhance site traffic, lead generation, in-person visits, and online orders - so it pays to make the most of it - however Google’s built in tools leave much to be desired, often making the process time consuming, and difficult to justify. 

Google Business Profile? What happened to Google My Business?

A Google Business Profile allows verified businesses to register and maintain a business profile on Google’s platforms. Previously known as Google My Business (GMB) the name was changed in November 2021 and relaunched by Google.

Google Business Profiles are available to businesses that operate from a specific physical address, such as cafes, restaurants, or retail stores. As well as service-based businesses who visit customers in person in a defined local area to provide that service, such as plumbers, gardeners, or mobile mechanics.

Your Profile information is included in Google Maps, Google Search, Google Shopping and third-party websites & apps that integrate with Google’s APIs. The following information is displayed depending on context:

  • A business name and description
  • Photos of your logo, your business premises, or your products
  • Posts and updates shared by your business (including promotions)
  • An overview of your products and services (such as your menu)
  • Your business contact information, location and business hours
  • Links to your website and your social accounts
  • A section for customer reviews and ratings

Note: If you are an online-only store such as an e-commerce retail store, you won’t be able to get a Google Business Profile, unless you add one for, say, your head office location - although this is officially not recommended.

Benefits of a Google Business Profile

  • Build credibility and trust with customer reviews. Reviews and ratings of your business on GBP help new customers assess your business. If you have spent time cultivating positive reviews, you’ll have a high chance of attracting new leads and customers. Investing the time to respond to all reviews, and in particular, resolve concerns raised by customers in negative reviews is key to establishing a strong first impression to potential customers via Google.
  • Boost your Google local search performance. Your rating from customer reviews is one of the strongest signals you can influence to improve your Google Local Search ranking vs similar businesses in your area. Cultivating positive customer reviews, and responding in a timely manner to resolve negative reviews will help give you the edge against competitors in local search. 
  • Respond to Q & A’s. Your Google Business Profile also allows you to address common questions and answers in a public forum. These questions may then appear as a snippet in your business listing. These can be used to identify common customer concerns such as where to find your business or if you have vegan options on your menu should this be unclear..
  • Post updates and promotions. Much like any other social media channel for your business, GBP allows you to post updates, photos, and promotions for your customers. GBP allows you to choose from different post types and share updates with your audience in real-time.
  • Attract more customers. Maintaining a strong, and up-to-date Google Business Profile is going to attract high-intent search traffic to your website, increase foot traffic to your business, and convert more leads to customers - ultimately boosting revenue.
  • Gain customer insights. The insights from your Google Business Profile can provide valuable data about your customer behavior. You’ll be able to leverage metrics like Page Views, Engagement, Clicks, and Audience Data to start generating insights and map your customers’ digital behavior. 

Many businesses struggle to find the time to manage their Google Business Profile on top of all their other social media accounts - particularly when it means logging in and out from yet another platform and using Google’s built in tools.

Fortunately there’s Sked!

Manage and Optimize your Google Business Profile with Sked

Sked’s all-in-one platform allows you to centralize and automate your planning, scheduling, engagement management, and reporting across all of your different accounts and social media platforms - including Google Business Profiles. 

Sked’s advanced tools like AI-assisted review management and improved insights and reports make it easy to get more from your Google Business Profile than Google’s own tools. 

What’s more; If you work with clients, agencies or external contractors Sked makes it easy for you and your team members to collaborate seamlessly on scheduling and approvals - at no extra cost. 

Here’s how Sked Social helps you get more out of your Google Business Profile.

Schedule Google Business Profile Posts in Advance, Across Your Accounts

Sked Social gives you an easy and user-friendly way to auto-post content across multiple Google Business Profiles, along with other social media accounts. That means no more time wasted with logging in and out of multiple listings and multiple platforms, while having to post individually to each. 

With Sked Social, you can create and schedule your content in one go, and be assured that your posts are published at the right time and on the right platforms to reach your target audience. So whether you're managing multiple social media accounts or just your Google Business Profile, you get the benefit of a streamlined process and high time efficiencies.

Simply upload your image, or select one from your library, when you draft a new post, add a caption with relevant keywords and hashtags, or let Sked’s Captivate AI write it for you, schedule your post and you’re set!

You can even add specific Google Business Profile CTA buttons to your post to compel customers to book a reservation, view your menu, or contact you in the same workflow.

Easily schedule posts for business updates, offers and events months in advance and see them in a visual calendar.

Reply to Google Business Profile Reviews and Q&As Seamlessly

Sked Social makes it easy for business owners, agencies, and teams to manage reviews and Q&As in GBP at scale, in a single platform. Sked Inbox is your central social inbox to view and respond to GBP reviews and questions, along with comments and messages from your other social accounts. 

By staying on top of reviews and Q&As as part of your regular messaging workflows in Sked, you can triage reviews for priority follow up, escalate open reviews within your team, and assign team members to follow up open reviews.

Plus, with Sked’s Captivate AI, you can generate multiple response ideas to help you craft the perfect reply every time!

Access Powerful GBP Insights and Analytics

Google does provide performance reporting for GBP natively; however, Google’s reporting lacks depth and many find meaningful insights hard to come by. In particular, users have expressed difficulties in getting useful analytics from GBP after Google phased out its Google Business Profile Manager Dashboard in 2022.

Sked Insights provides comprehensive analytics data sourced through the Google Business Profile API, including metrics that are not readily obtainable from GBP like post views, search keywords and more.

Sked’s Google Business Profile Insights at a Glance

  • An insights dashboard where you can view all the most up-to-date analytics information on your social media profiles, all in one place
  • Easy-to-understand analytics custom-made for busy social media managers and digital marketing professionals 
  • One-click PDFs, with a variety of easy-to-read reports that can be easily exported and shared with your team or clients

Spend less and get more with Sked Social

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Sked’s Google Business Profile Metrics and Reporting

  • Reviews and response activity. View at-a-glance reports on how many users are reviewing your business and how many reviews you’ve replied to, over time
  • Reports on your Google Business Profile discoverability. Learn how potential customers are finding you. Get insights into how many are finding you on mobile versus desktop devices and refine your messaging to best resonate with when and where your GBP is relevant to searchers. 
  • Summaries of posts for certain periods. Track your GBP post performance over time, broken down by type of post, such as events posts, promotions, or photos.
  • Profile views. See when and where customers are viewing your profile, the device used, and trends over time. 
  • Summaries of your Q&As. Track your questions and answers and assess whether you need to modify or review them for clarity, or add more. This can be a helpful way of reducing the overall number of queries you’re receiving and overcome any barriers to purchase.

Manage Multiple Google Business Profiles Easily

If you work in an agency, and your clients, or your business have multiple Google Business Profiles, logging in and out of different Google Business Profile accounts is a cumbersome process that doesn’t scale. 

Sked Social is perfect for these scenarios. It allows you to monitor, manage and track performance for all of your Google Business Profile accounts in one place. But it doesn’t just help with Google Business Profiles. Sked helps you track and manage all major social media networks, from Instagram, to Facebook to TikTok and pretty much everything in between. 

Centralizing and streamlining all of your GBP management in the same tools your team uses to plan, schedule, engage, and report on all of your social media activity takes the stress out of managing social media, and ensures that you won’t miss a message or a notification, all while saving hours every month.

It’s Quick and Easy to Connect GBP to Sked

Connecting a Google Business Profile to Sked Social only takes a few minutes. It’s easy to get connected to Sked once you have set up and verified your Google Business Profile.

Once connected, you’ll be able to manage your account, track and respond to comments, and schedule Google Business Profile posts, just like any other social channel you manage with Sked. 

Ready to Supercharge Your Google Business Profile

If you’re struggling to find the time to maintain yet another channel and wish you could give GBP the time it really needs to shine, just know, there’s a better way - Sked!

Streamline your online presence with Sked Social’s all-in-one Google Business Profile solution, complete with advanced scheduling, AI-assisted review management, and performance insights today.

Want to get your Google Business Profile working harder for you? Get started by signing up to Sked’s Free 7-day trial.

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