How to Add Your Business to Google Maps 2024 + Optimization Tips

If you’re wondering how to add your business to Google Maps, look no further! In this article, we will break down the most essential reasons why adding your business to Google Maps in 2024 is a great idea for your business growth.

Google Maps is a web mapping platform that enables Google to map out locations through satellite imagery so that they can be found by users looking for real-time directions and updates on traffic and public transportation. The tool is also extremely helpful in finding geographical regions, specific locations, and local businesses. 

Did you know that approximately 86% of potential customers use Google Maps to find local businesses, and 88% of those potential customers look at online reviews before making a purchase?

Undoubtedly, Google Maps is one of the most essential business listing tools that enables users to find local businesses that operate in their geographical proximity. 

If you want to take advantage of Google Maps for your business growth, this guide will help you understand the platform better and show you how to add your business to Google Maps in 2024. 

Google Maps is an incredibly powerful tool for local businesses that want to be found by their ideal customers through location search. Google Maps works by enabling businesses that have a Google My Business account to add their business location to Google Maps.

This is important since utilizing Google Maps as part of your local SEO strategy can help you be more easily discovered by your local audiences. This way, you are maximizing your marketing efforts and ensuring that you are “available” in your neighborhood directory. 

The following are the most vital reasons why investing in Google Maps optimization can help you with your online marketing efforts:

Businesses can easily show up on Google Maps when a user searches a business category in their geographic area. For example, if you are a digital marketing agency in Dallas (like us), you would list your business as a “digital marketing agency” with your address on the platform. 

Consequently, any searchers in Dallas who decide to look for a digital marketing agency on Google Maps would see your listing (along with others) and find your business information and directions to your location from your Google My Business profile.

As a business, you can provide updates, promotions, and relevant information to help potential customers understand your offerings and contact you for more clarification. Google Maps enables easy messaging with customers for personalized assistance. 

Likewise, you can add new photos and videos to your listings, ensuring your business looks active and relevant to customer needs.

Google Maps is an excellent platform for showcasing important information about your business. From holiday hours to new additions to your services, it will let perspectives know about your real-time updates.

If you’re wondering how to add your business to Google Maps, here are the precise steps to take. 

First, sign into your Google My Business profile (currently renamed Google Business Profile). If you don’t have an account, you’ll need to create one since your Google Business information is what customers will see when they click on your name on Google Maps.

Navigate to the “Manage now” button if you’ve already added your business to Google Business. If not, you can navigate to the “Add Your Business to Google” section, where you will be allowed to create a business profile with your business name, address, category, phone number, and business website address.

Fill out all your business info and ensure it is accurate and matches your other professional listings. 

Verify your business through a verification code sent to your email address or phone number. Once verified, you’ll be able to publish your business on Google Maps. 

Before publishing your business, optimize your listing with accurate and essential information. Then, click that “publish” button to make your business go live. Your business is now searchable on Google Maps!

Google Maps SEO is a type of search engine optimization process that is conducted to increase search visibility on Google Maps. It deals with using various techniques that help business owners rank better for local business search queries. 

Ultimately, utilizing search engine optimization for Google Maps will help you drive more targeted traffic to your business listing and propel your brand’s trust and visibility. 

To rank high on Google Maps, use all the features Google Business offers, including updates (Google posts), responses to customer inquiries, photos, videos, product listings, and more. Since the Google algorithm looks for accuracy to align your online presence with your website, be diligent to ensure that all the information you provide is correct.

Similarly to regular SEO, using keywords to optimize your business description on Google Maps will help your business reach more visibility. Look for keywords that are low in difficulty and high in search volume and optimize them for your geographic location (ex: vegan cafe in Denver, Colorado) so that they match what customers are searching for.

For your customers to have the best experience with your business, always keep your business profile information updated with closing hour changes, holiday plans, promotions, and service changes. When you become proactive about sharing your business updates, customers will sense that you care about them and know what to expect during their visit.

Excellent customer service online and offline will help boost your brand awareness, lead to positive reviews, and foster word-of-mouth recommendations. Happy visitors will most likely be willing to give a review, especially if your team encourages them to do so. 

And don’t forget to respond to reviews! Not only will responding to reviews help with your local search rankings, but it will also enhance customer experience and trust that you are open to improvement and growth.  

High-quality photos and videos can humanize your business and help attract customers who are eager to know more about your business before they visit. Photos and videos can also be title and description optimized with alt tags, which help to improve Google Maps SEO. 

Optimizing your website with SEO also helps with ranking a business on Google Maps since the Google algorithm looks for signs of relevance, credibility, location, and user experience on a website to evaluate the likelihood of a business appearing high in Google Maps search results. 

That is why spending some time optimizing for the elements below will greatly improve your visibility on Google Maps results. 

Backlinks are simply links to your website that appear on other websites. To ensure that your business has local relevance, building local backlinks to your website is crucial. Backlinks are signals to search engines that your website has authority in your niche and that it should be prioritized over other websites.

When you use local keywords that are often searched for on Google in your niche, you are more likely to come up in search results for those queries. By understanding the power of local SEO and user search intent, your online presence can stand out from many similar businesses in your location.

When you embed a local map on your website, you tell the Google algorithm the specific location of your business. This information helps greatly with local SEO and with higher search results in local and Google Maps searches. 

Now that you know how to add your business to Google Maps, the next step is to optimize your listing for SEO.

 Including SEO in your marketing efforts is vital for businesses that want to expand their digital presence and reputation. From onsite and offsite SEO to content and technical SEO, many components of SEO marketing take time, patience, and resources to master. 

Indeed, local SEO marketing has some of the best returns on investment out of most types of marketing. Therefore, if you are looking to expand your online marketing presence in your community, investing in Google Maps SEO will help you increase your visibility and grow your business. 

If you need help with adding your business to Google Maps, let our local SEO experts walk you through the process so that you are more empowered to thrive online.