Google Business Listing is completely free of charge. You can manage and optimize your Google My Business Listing with no cost at all! 

Visit https://www.google.com/intl/en_my/business/ and click on 'Start Now'. You will be asked to register your business name, address, contact number and more. Just fill in the form as show to you, and verify your listing with any of the suggested methods available to you. That's it - you have completed your registration! Now you will only need to wait for verification via post card or phone call. Once verified, your business will be confirmed.

Google My Business is important for your business because it shows your company listing in the local area. As an example, your business can show up when users area searching for establishments of your business category near them. It's basically free business coverage!

Once you have completed the registration of your business, Google may take up to two weeks to review and verify your business listing. This is done to ensure that there are no spam or fake listings and keep up the high quality of the No. 1 search engine in the world!

If you have already input the verification code that you received via phone call or post card and inserted it into the verification input form on Google My Business, then you have already verified your business. Only verified businesses can edit their business details. 

Your business is not showing up in Google because:

1. It's not a verified listing. 
2. Your business ranking is lower than those around you. 
3. You recently added or made changes to your business info. 
4. Your business does not follow the Google guidelines. 

You will have a much better chance of claiming the listing if someone else in your business has access to the account. Below are the steps:

Google My Business is one of the most powerful and free tool that helps to improve your local area SEO. As long as you keep your Google My Business profile up to date with correct, complete and updated, your business can be found by people searching for businesses and industries like yours near their location.

From increased online exposure to more prominent ads and better ad targeting (and thus, spending), setting up a Google My Business account takes only a small amount of your time and provides you a lot of returns!

As we have mentioned in a previous post, having a Google My Business means that your customers can see your business location, opening hours, phone numbers and many more when they search for similar businesses!

As an example, when you search for 'marketing agencies in Bandar Sunway', you might see Google Maps results showing our company, PanPages TRINITY, on the map!

Setting up an account does not take very long either - a few clicks is all it takes before you gain more exposure online!

These manual locations are no longer being supported on Google Ads. As such, you can only create location extensions if you have a Google My Business account.

Having a proper business address can increase your customers' trust towards you, knowing that you have a physical business location. This way, your customers can visit your store in case of any issues.

These location extensions also play a part in making your ads more prominent. When your ads take up more space in the search results with location extensions, sitelinks with descriptions, callout extensions and more, your potential clients are more likely to click on your ads.

Over the past two years, Google search queries containing the phrase "near me" and also "can I buy" or "to buy" has increased 500%! These queries would include searches such as "Where to buy coffee machine near me" or "Where can I buy Christmas decorations near me".

Similarly, the search queries containing "near me" and "open" or "open now" have also increased about 200% compared to 2016. That means that people are searching "McDonalds open near me open now" and "pharmacy near me open right now" are increasing!



On Google My Business, you can input your opening hours, your business category and even upload posts about your ongoing promotion. This is where you can include some details about your products, create a free mini website detailing your products and services and more.

Ultimately, these details will contribute to people finding your business when they need you the most - all for free!

Do You Have Google Ads Running?

If you do, you need to create and update your Google My Business account now more than ever!

The combination of updating your opening hours, your location, business products and more can help you to gain more exposure online and be found by your potential customers when it counts.

Consider adding 'near me' and 'open now' keywords and use bid adjustment to get a chance for higher ad ranks when people are searching near you or when your business is open.

So, have you opened your Google My Business account yet? If not, it's definitely time to open one! 

If you have your own business and have yet to open your own Google My Business (GMB) account, you should open it now! When you have your business listed on this dashboard, your organization gains better visibility on Google search engine. Here’s why you should have your business listed on GMB.

When your business is listed on GMB, you can be found on Google Maps. Customers looking for businesses related to yours will also see you, especially if you are located close to them. Here’s a sample local business listing when you do a Google search for ‘marketing agencies in Bandar Sunway’. You’ll find that you will be redirected to the company’s website and you also have the options navigate there immediately.

From the screenshot above, you might have noticed that certain company details such as number of reviews, address and contact number. That was from a general keyword search. Let’s say that your customer knows you, and they are actively searching for your business. Let’s say that they’re searching for PanPages TRINITY Sdn. Bhd. These customers will see our business listing on the right sidebar of the Google search results. Your customers can send your company’s Google Map location straight to their phone from their PC and navigate to your company with a single ‘Send’ button click. They can also view the outside of your building with the ‘see outside’ button and see photos associated with your company with the ‘see photos’ button.

Your business listing won’t immediately give you valuable insights, but give it some time and you will be able to view them. Once your GMB account has been set up, you only need to log into the dashboard and click on the ‘insights’ tab on the left sidebar. There, you will see information such as how your customers searched for your business, where they saw it - a search listing or a Google Map listing, customer actions - site visits, direction request and calls, where your customers are searching for you from, and photo views. You can choose to view data from the past 1 week, month or quarter.  

Step 1:

This is pretty straightforward. Head to GMB’s homepage, and click on ‘Start Now’.

Step 2:

You will be asked to sign in to your Google account. It’s advisable for you to log in with a business e-mail so that any other employees can also access this account if needed. Upon signing in, you will be prompted to enter the name of your business. If your business is not listed in the dropdown menu, then you can choose to create a business with that name.

Step 3: 

Click ‘Next’, and continue to fill in the information when prompted.

Step 4:

Now that you have filled in your address, you will be prompted to drag the marker on the exact location of your business. You can use the satellite option to help you recognize the buildings better if needed.

Step 5:

You will then need to select your business category. Are you a marketing agency? A food machinery supplier? Just key in the most relevant terms and find your category, then click ‘next’!

Step 6: 

In the next screen, you can enter your company’s phone number and your current website URL. Here’s the best part. If you don’t have an existing website, you can get a free website on GMB! It will be auto-populated with the information that you have entered for your business, but you are welcome to create posts from your GMB dashboard afterwards! The website builder for GMB is a feature that is suitable for small businesses just starting up before they purchase their own domain.

Tip: The free website will have the following link format: yourbusinessname.business.site. To view samples of these websites, simply go to Google and search with site:business.site and you will see how these free websites appear. 

Step 7:

You can opt in for GMB’s updates and recommendations in the next screen. We recommend that you opt in so that your business listing will always be up to date with the latest changes.

Step 8:

You’re almost done! All that you need to do now is to verify that you are indeed authorized for this business listing. Just choose the way that you’d like your business listing to be verified, and once you do, you will be able to manage your business listing - posts, photos, review replies and everything else!

And that’s it! You’re on your way to a good organic search result. Remember, you can create posts with call-to-action buttons from your GMB dashboard whenever you have any events, offers or just simply an update from your company as well! This will appear along with your business listing in the right side bar. Last but not least, ensure that the business data you entered in your GMB account is always up to date and accurate so that your clients can find you easily!