Did you know that of the over 10000 businesses in Sri Lanka, only 44% of them have claimed their Google My Business profile? If you are one of the 44%, you’re missing out on free organic traffic that you could be acceptable to your company from Google daily.

Are you losing conceivable clients or customers due to not having an optimized profile? Don’t let this happen to you, get your business claimed, and then optimize your account to receive the maximum advantages from this amazing tool.
Don’t worry if you’re confused about where to start or how to optimize. We’ve got you covered. Check out these 10 Google My Business benefits and how you take advantage of them.

1. Increase Local SEO
When it comes to regional SEO, one of the most major facets to ranking higher is optimizing your Google My Business listing. Just having a GMB profile isn’t enough, you need to ensure that it is optimized to bring you the most elevated rankings.
There are top facets to optimizing your GMB profile. The first is to confirm your business. This includes having a 4-digit PIN mailed to you so that Google understands you’re a fair business with a legitimate address.
The second one is to confirm all of the details are filled out entirely. When you complete your GMB profile, numerous of the areas will say they’re optional, be sure to complete as many as apply to your business and keep this data up to date constantly.
Finally, you want to get reviews. People want to see reviews before they purchase an item, visit a restaurant, or choose a service provider. Encourage your customers to fill out a review by offering coupons or some other encouragement.

2. Google 3-Pack
You understand you need to rank on the first page of Google to get discovered online these days. Nobody looks at page 3 in the listings. If you’re a small legal practice, however, how can your blog or website content for terms with the giant national firms?
Those bigger practices have a whole staff saved to optimize their website, but you have local SEO. As noted earlier, your Google My Business profile can support you rank higher in terms of local SEO.
One way to get on the Google first page is to make it into the Google 3-pack. One way to stand out in the crowded field of local businesses is to make your profile as detailed as possible. Yes, your business name, address, and phone number are a must, but so is having a captivating description and choosing the most relevant category.

3. Google Map Searches
Many potential clients will use their Google Map app to discover local businesses near them. When they tap on restaurants, will you come up at the top of the list? What elements will they find when they tap on your business?
You can include your menu of products or services you offer. You can add your business hours, a hyperlinked phone number /hotline so they can contact you directly from the map, and if you’re able to, you can offer direct messaging from the Google Map app as well.
All of these extra features will help you stand out when most of your target clients have several options to select from.

4. Increase Traffic
There is an old movie quote “Build it and they will come?” Well, that doesn’t work in the online world. You want to boost your sales and build your client list. To do this, you need to grow traffic to your business website.
As mentioned previously, getting onto the unreachable first page of Google can be extremely difficult. However, getting into the map pack will secure that your business comes up on page one every time someone searches for “garages near me.”
An optimized profile will ensure that more potential clients will find your website and improve traffic. When your website is optimized to convert that traffic into email subscribers, it becomes easier to increase your sales and enhance your bottom line.

5. Get Reviews and Enhance Client Trust
As we mentioned before, potential clients want to see reviews before they give their patronage to a company. You have to find a motivation to offer your current clients to write a review. One way is to offer a coupon. For example, a bakery might offer a free cupcake to everyone who can show their review at the counter.
Future potential clients and customers trust these reviews left by former customers and will give their business to the place with the most and best reviews. Be careful, you can’t pay for reviews, but you can boost your current clients to leave a review. This will help improve your ranking and enhance customer faith.

6. Increase Engagement with Customers
One of the many benefits of Google is that they offer your business many touchpoints with which to create customer relations. These engagements will set you apart from the mass.
When you fully operate all the benefits of your GMB profile, your business can go miles beyond everyone else who only enters their name, address, phone number, and hours of business.
You’re a smart business owner to also include professional photos, short videos, menus, posts, messaging options, and countless other features offered in your profile. It’s not enough to simply claim your business in GMB, you need to go the extra mile and engage with your customers.

7. Increase in Sales
When you take the time (or hire a professional) to optimize your profile and engage with your clients, you will see an increase in sales on your website.
Customers want to do enterprise with brands they trust and feel associated with. Potential customers say they are 59% more likely to do business with brands they believe, and a whopping 92% say brands aren’t listening online.

It can be nearly impossible for businesses to monitor all the forms of digital marketing and communication. That’s why you need to hire a professional who is experienced across multi-channel touchpoints with your current and potential customers.

9. Rank Higher in SERP
When it comes to digital/Social Media marketing, one of your key performance needles should be to increase your rank in the search engine result pages. An important way to support your business improve your visibility online is to create your GMB profile.
When you give Google this data, it knows that you’re a legitimate business and is more likely to suggest you by increasing your rankings. This will help not only your map pack ranking, but your blog post rankings as well.
All your digital marketing steps will compound to support you get found by your potential clients. A quality digital marketing specialist will be able to help you across the many touchpoints between your potential customers and your business.
10. Stand Out in a Crowded Field
There are over 1 million small businesses in Sri Lanka. How can you stand out in a packed field?
The solution is in your Google My Business profile. As mentioned above, only 44% of businesses have claimed their GMB profile, and we would discuss a much less percentage have optimized their profile.
By taking benefit of this tool delivered by Google, you can help your business stand out online. This is why Google is useful for companies, you can use it to your benefit to build a uniform brand online. Offer your customers multiple ways to find you online, GMB might not be as desirable as Instagram, but it is just as useful to stand out in the crowd.
11. Cost-Effective Marketing
When it comes to advertising, you can begin to bleed money in your trade budget. When it comes to organic traffic though, you can see exponential ROI for your time and money.
By putting up your profile, optimizing it, and then watching it regularly, you can operate this free tool from Google to bring you continual organic traffic for years to come.
When it comes to cost-effective digital marketing, your business can benefit from the many Google products including GMB, Google Analytics, and Google retargeting.
Not only that but also, GMB is a Free Menu Tool and Free Organic Traffic.