Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)<br>

Google Business Profile is a tool in the “Google ecosystem” that makes it easier for business owners to register their company details on Google from a single local address, making the job of verifying and managing profiles more convenient.

With the arrival of Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business, local businesses that don’t necessarily have a website can access a place where they can unequivocally identify: their location, type of business, contact details, resolve queries from potential customers, opening hours, etc.

The aim of all this is to improve the presence of local businesses in Google searches, benefiting both the customer (by having more relevant results) and the local businesses themselves (they can get more potential customers).

Advantages of creating a business profile on Google

The most obvious one is that your brand will be present on Google, since it is the most used search engine, it is the place where most people interested in your company will potentially look for you.

It also offers other advantages, such as:

• It helps you to manage and update information about your company.
  
• It makes it easier for users to see your company and the work you do, as you can include images and videos of your company.
  
• It improves interaction with your customers, as they can leave questions on your Google profile, where you can answer them and this is visible to other customers.
  
• It improves your SEO strategy without having to spend money.
  
• It helps you to get reviews on Google, which is very useful for building trust with new customers, as the positive experiences shared by your current customers will encourage new ones.
  
• It will also give you statistics that will help you get to know your target audience much better, such as where they found you from (Google search or Google Maps), the keywords that led them to you, the clicks on the URLs in your profile, the calls generated to the phone number registered, etc.
  

How do I create a business profile on Google?

Creating a profile is not at all complicated, but bear in mind that one may already exist.
This is because Google generally creates company profiles based on existing information about your company on the Internet.

So the first step is to check whether the profile already exists, which is as simple as searching for your company name and address on Google.
If it does exist, you should request control of it by clicking on the “Are you the owner of this company?” link.
This option is displayed when the profile already exists.

If it has not yet been created, the process for creating a Google Company Profile is as follows:

• Create a Gmail account to manage the company; even if you already have a personal account, it is advisable to create a specific account for the company.
  
• In your Google account, click Manage Google account>>Privacy and personalization.
  
• After that, click on Business personalization > Activate and you will see a link called: “Add your business to Google”.
  
• Now just follow the steps in the wizard to verify your business details and that you own it.