Expand Your Foodservice Equipment Supply Company’s Online Presence
When someone types the name of your foodservice equipment supply company into Google’s search box, do you know what they might see on the search results page? Naturally, you hope they will see your FES business listed first, but unless your company’s name is somewhat unique, it might not be and could even turn up buried below other similar company names.
Using Google My Business, you can easily fix this, improve your overall search engine results, and secure other B2B digital marketing benefits. In fact, if you use Google My Business (GMB), it will help you display high up on the results page and expand your prominence with a separate listing to the right of the results that provides more information about your company. And using GMB is free—talk about a win-win!
What is Google My Business?
Launched by Google in 2014, GMB was initially designed in part to reduce duplication in business search results and enhance the reliability of those results through business owner verification of the data. Not only does this help Google clean up its vast business index, but it provides individual businesses greater visibility on Google.
As with everything online, GMB has evolved since it launched, and today’s business GMB listings offer several distinct digital marketing benefits, including:
- Free advertising with a trustworthy business profile
- Enhanced profile on search engine results
- More search engine optimization (SEO) tools
- Optimized location-based search engine results
On the basic level, a GMB listing is just the company name, address, hours of operation, website link, and company description. To boost its effectiveness, you can:
- Add images and video to the listing.
- Accept and respond to reviews.
- Ask and answer questions from the public.
- Promote upcoming events, special offers, or other relevant information with Google Posts.
- Provide directions (and more exposure) to your business via Google Maps.
- Gain insights into customer behavior through GMB analytics.
For the record, Google officially changed the name of GMB to Google Business Profile in late 2021. However, the service remains essentially the same, and the new name and GBP acronym are not yet widely used.
Why is GMB Important for B2B Businesses?
The effectiveness of GMB is most apparent to retail operations benefitting from local drop-in customers who find their business on Google or Google Maps. B2B companies generally don’t serve drop-in customers, so many B2B business owners do not recognize the potential value of GMB. However, GMB can give B2B businesses an edge over B2B companies that do not use GMB in several distinct ways:
- First, while B2B companies do not rely on Google searches for product and services procurement, many buyers and sellers use it as a research tool. If used to research your products and services, like say foodservice equipment supplies, a GMB listing (aka Google Business Profile), can help put you at the forefront of search results.
- A well-managed GMB listing boosts your SEO, helping your company’s top-tier placement in search results and boosting the likelihood of showcasing your profile on the results page (free advertising).
- Customer reviews also help enhance SEO, and good reviews help your company establish a stellar reputation within your B2B sector.
- The Analytics are invaluable for better understanding your B2B customers’ behavior. It can help you determine how your customers search for businesses like yours, and what elements of your GMB listing work best.
How to Get the Most Out of GMB for Your B2B Connections
Practicing effective management and engagement is the key to getting the most out of your GMB to expand your B2B connections. Make sure that everything on your GMB listing is correct and up-to-date and take time to add new content regularly. Engagement boosts your SEO and helps connect you with potential new B2B customers. Other management and engagement tips include:
- Don’t bog your GMB listing down with unnecessary keywords or try other SEO tricks. Google algorithms apparently like to see clarity in these listings, so clearly detail what your company does and what products/services it offers with as few words as possible.
- Monitor your reviews on a regular basis. Immediately respond to any negative reviews and, if possible, resolve the issue causing the reviewer’s ire quickly.
- Make use of your FAQ section by inputting questions about your business and the related answer. When someone else asks a question, make sure you respond with an appropriate answer.
- Claim and use your Google short name (shortened, easy-to-remember version of your official company name) and URL.
- Take advantage of Google posts by promoting upcoming events, special offers, new products, or anything else that might benefit your customer base. Add photos or other images when relevant.
GMB Works for National B2B Businesses, Too!
While GMB might seem like it provides the most value for local businesses, whether retail or B2B, national B2B companies also benefit from using Google’s business listing tool. By claiming the GMB business listing, national companies help ensure the correctness of information appearing on the knowledge panels displayed with top search results. Google algorithms collect data about everything—including a national B2B company—from a variety of sources.
Google algorithms consider information collected directly from the company, such as through its website and social media feed, to be the most reliable. As such, when a company creates a GMB listing, it becomes one of the most trusted sources of information Google uses to generate knowledge panels and to determine search results rankings. If there is an operational change to your business, like moving your headquarters from California to Florida, Google picks up on it immediately when you update your GMB listing.
Among other benefits GMB offers to national B2B firms, is the ability to set up and run local GMB profiles for your offices and branches around the country. This will boost your company’s ranking in local search results, enhance the company’s overall SEO efforts, and can increase the firm’s appearance in search results knowledge panels—i.e., free advertising.
Optimize Your GMB B2B Efforts with Beedash
If you’re interested in giving your FES company’s digital marketing efforts a boost with GMB but cannot spare the resources to pursue this novel tool, turn the task over to Beedash’s marketing services. With more than 10 years of providing the foodservice equipment supply industry with the latest and most advanced website development, software solutions, and digital marketing services, contact Beedash today.
