Claiming Your Online Business Profiles
Discover the most important online business profiles, including Google My Business and Bing Places, that you should claim to boost your business's local ranking.
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Since we want our business to appear in search engines for relevant queries, it’s only fair to give these search engines our complete business information. Google is the go-to resource for people when searching for local businesses. This makes Google My Business profile our primary focus. Nonetheless, Bing Places is important too. Besides search engines, we can also get our business listed on Apple Maps, review platforms such as Yelp and Trip Advisor, and social media platforms such as Facebook and X.
Create a business profile on each of these resources, making sure to give the correct business name, address, contact number, website, and other data. The information should be consistent throughout our online profiles.
Furthermore, we can optimize further by adding a rich description including local keywords in moderation. Other than text, images and videos make our profiles even more attractive. Include visuals that can portray a positive, but realistic, picture of the brand so our customers know what to expect when they visit us.
Google My Business profile
As of December 2021, Google gets a whopping 85.55% of the global search traffic [61]. Our potential customers should be able to find us on Google.
Start by creating the business’s Google profile. The profile is free and easy to create. Fill out the details for the business completely and correctly. We can optimize our existing business profile or create a new one if our business is not listed yet. Next, select a category from the drop-down menu.
Next, we’ll add an address.
Add the business’s location on the map and enter phone number and website. After we give our business’s basic information, our business will be verified before it goes live.
Besides the basic information, it helps to optimize our Google profile further by adding photos and videos, including working hours, listing down the services we offer, etc. Create a rich profile, giving all the information we can to help our customers know more about us. Pictures and videos are even more important if we run a restaurant, hotel, or a similar business where the customers will want to know what the place looks like.
Bing Places
Though not as popular as Google, Bing still holds over 7% of the global search market. Similar to Google, Bing also lets us create a listing to increase visibility in Bing’s local searches. Bing Places For Business lets us import our profile from Google My Business if we already have our business listed on Google.
Other than the basic information, we can add links to our social profiles. We can also add up to 100 photos for a profile. Provide as much information as possible because these will appear on our business profile whenever our business shows up in Bing’s search results. If we’ve added our X and Facebook pages, for example, our customers can see these on our profile and visit these social profiles to learn more about us.
Apple Maps
iPhone users are highly likely to use Apple Maps over Google Maps since that’s the default Maps application installed on their devices. Apple Maps also offer free listings for local businesses. Setting up our business profile on Apple Maps makes sure iPhone users can find us just as easily. Other than the basic data, we can also add our company’s website, Yelp, Facebook, and X pages to the profile.
Review sites
Maintaining a profile on review sites, such as TripAdvisor and Yelp, is very important for our local business. These sites appear in organic search results directly below the Local Pack. We want to make sure our business has a place in these results too. Other than Trip Advisor and Yelp, claim our listing on any popular local review sites too. In the screenshot below, we can see some local review sites in Los Angeles highlighted in red.
To find our region’s local review sites, type [location][keyword] reviews in Google. For example, typing los angeles hotel reviews will give us a list of review sites to get our hotel operating in Los Angeles listed.
Social media profiles
When claiming our business’s online profiles, don’t forget social media. Social media profiles also improve local SEO.
If our business is present on popular social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, these profiles will appear on our Google and Bing profiles as well. They make our Google, Bing, and Apple Maps profile richer and more engaging to our audience.
Test your knowledge
Choose the best answer for the questions below.
Why is it important to provide consistent business information across online profiles?
To confuse search engines
To make profiles more attractive
To improve local SEO rankings
To prevent customers from finding our business
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