1.  Create and Verify Your Google Business Listing

• Go to google.com/business and sign in.  If you don’t have a google account sign up for one before this step.
• Enter your business’ address.  If you do not service customers at a physical address, click “list the area instead” and click “next”
• If you don’t serve customers at your business address:
  1. Enter your business address.
  2. At the bottom, click I deliver goods or services to my customers and click “next”
  3. List your service areas, then click “next”
• Search for your business category and click “next”
• Enter a phone number or website URL and click “next”
• Select a verification option.  Choose the “Mail” method
• Click “send postcard”
• Wait for the postcard to come in the mail (3 days – 3 weeks)
• Sign in to google.com/business and click the “verify now button”
• Congratulations you did it!  You are ready to move on to the next step.

For more detailed instructions on this step go to this google support page:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/6300717?hl=en&ref_topic=6300675

2.  Optimize Your Google Business Listing

• Pick your Primary Business Category that you would like to show up for.
• Pick every single other sub-category that is relevant to your business and choose those as well.  (do not choose categories that do not relate to your business)
• Fill out your listing 100%.  Answer every single possible question.
• If possible include some of your local key words in your business listing title
• Go out of your way to set special hours for every holiday you can think of.  Even if your special hours are the same as your normal hours, it will show Google and others that they can trust the listing.
• Make sure that your website front page has key words and titles that support the key words that you want to rank for in your google business listing.
• If you don’t have a website, create one for free using the google my business website tool.  This is easy and free to do.  When you are in your Google My Business dashboard click on “website” on the left hand side of the page.  They will walk you through the setup of your website based on your Google My Business information.
• Upload Several Photos.  It may likely help to have your photos named with some sort of content relevant to your industry or key words.
• Continue to upload photos and update your information regularly going forward.

3.  Create a Short Name For Your Business Page and Get Your Review Request Link

Check out this video on exactly how to create a short name for your Google My Business listing and how to get your link so you can start requesting reviews for your business.

4.  Create an Email Template or a Custom Review Request Note on Your Phone

• If you have a CRM system for your business, it would probably be best to create a template for that, if you don’t you would likely want a traditional email or text message template.
• Do you communicate with your customers through text normally for booking appointments or answering questions?  If so you should create a text message template.  If you do not normally communicate with your customers through text, then an email may be your best route.
• Regardless of which platform you choose, keep it short and sweet.  People will not read your message if you are too wordy.
• Thank them for their business and ask them to help you out by leaving a review for you.
• Paste your short review link immediately following the request and thank them in advance for their help.
• On an iphone you can use text replacement to quickly bang out one of these texts or create a note and pin it to the top so you can easily send it out.
• Gmail, Outlook and pretty much any email provider allows you to create custom templates that you can use again and again.  You may have to dig a little bit for instructions, but it will be worth your time.

5.  Start Requesting Reviews on Every Transaction

• It is pretty much that simple… Send the review request out with every single transaction.
• If you don’t get in the habit, you will be missing out on a lot of reviews.
• If you are in an industry that happens to have a lot of neutral or unhappy customers just by nature of the business, you may consider using our Review Revolution Feedback software that collects feedback from every customer and sends review requests to happy clients automatically.
• Create a template for past customers and send it out to all of your customers for the last few months.
• If you have different points in your dealings with the customer that could warrant a review, send custom requests out at each of those times.
• If you want to have this process done automatically on your behalf, request a demo and we can get you set up with a custom solution.

6.  Respond to Every Review

• Google takes into account whether or not you are responding to reviews and uses that for ranking.
• Google My Business now sends an email to your customer letting them know that you have responded to their review.
• If someone left you a negative review, this may help open up a dialogue that turns into a satisfied customer and a change in score.
• If someone left you  a positive review, your response lets them and others know that you appreciate them taking the time to help you out.
• Negative reviews should be responded to in a very calm, empathetic and professional manner.  Never get into a dissagreement, say negative comments or go on a rant about the scenario.  Prospective future clients are reading these 1-star reviews and you WILL be judged on your responses.
• An added bonus, is that the words that are in reviews and responses are used for SEO purposes and give you an opportunity to gain more citations for your business.

7.  Make 1-3 Posts Every Week on Your Google Business Page

• Make at least one Google My Business post every week.  They expire every seven days and this will help you stay current.
• Include upcoming events, relevant key words and photos.
• If you are running out of content to post, don’t be afraid to copy and paste one of your recent Google reviews as a post.
• The ideal quantity of posts seems to be 2-3 per week.  So, keep on posting and don’t let up.
• Our Google My Business “Total Management” package includes 3 posts per week along with everything we have listed in this entire checklist.

Request A Demo to get your Google On Right Away.