Google Local Map Pack Accounts For Over 80% OF Your New Business!
Start setting up your new Google My Business page at business.google.com. Sign up for a profile under a gmail email address. Once you have set up your new local page you will send yourself a post card to your business address.
This step can be the most frustrating of all for locksmiths. When your post card arrives, if your page does get immediately suspended this is completely normal.
When sending yourself a postcard for pin verification it’s important to show your address to the public only if your business has an actual store at it’s location. Many locksmiths are a mobile service only. This is fine too, but needs to be set up a little differently.
Mobile locksmith Google My Business pages require that you do not show your business address to the public as well as showing what zip codes you serve as a business that goes out to a customer. Mixing these up means more down time as you have to verify your business in different ways before it will be out of suspension.
Getting out of suspension requires that you fill out the form located here.
When your page is live you’ll want to make sure you fill out all of the sections below. When you put as much relevant information as possible in setting up your Google My Business Page for a locksmith you will get more business for the lifetime of your business.
Optimizing Your Google My Business Page
Business Name
Make certain to accurately fill out your business name as you would like it to appear anywhere it is found online. This is important because your business will rank better for popular and valuable keywords based on the accuracy of your business everywhere it appears online.
Address
As covered in the section to the left, you will want to show your business address to the public only if it is an actual store that customers can visit in person.
Mobile locksmiths that only go out to their customers need to select a service radius so that they can show where they are willing to travel to.
Temporary offices or post office boxes are some unique attempts we’ve seen for locksmiths looking for new pages and thus more business. These do not often work and there are better ways of going about saturating a marketplace that we could help you with.
Phone Number
Local phone numbers are best as they represent what people are familiar with. Most people are less trusting of a business with an out of area phone number or toll free option on their local page.
Hours of Operation
Your hours of operation should be as accurate as possible. Even if you don’t get much work in the late hours, posting your hours as 24/7 will net you more business as you grow since more established locksmiths may be closed late at night. That being said you also don’t want bad reviews for saying your open but not answering when a potential customer has an emergency outside of more traditional business hours.
Locksmith Categories
While the category of locksmith is the most basic and optimal category, there are several others like safe locksmith or emergency locksmith you’ll want to select as well. Make sure you select as many as are relevant that you can.
Optimized Photos
You’ll want to post optimized photos of your business, logos and of locksmiths out in the field performing tasks.
Videos
Even short videos of you doing locksmith services out at your clients home of business can help immensely. Remember you’re trying to look as active and engaged as possible.
Service Menu
Place all of the different services you provide in your service menu. Some examples of popular locksmith services include:
- Commercial Locksmith
- Residential Locksmith
- Rekey
- Duplicate Key Service
- Safe Locksmith
- Auto Keys
- Auto Keys with Transponders
By being as descriptive as possible you are constantly showing search engines how much more relevant your company is over other competitors in your area.
Q & A Section
You can prepopulate your own questions and answers section so that potential clients can have a resource to the questions you get the most often.
Welcome Offer & Posts
You will want to post a welcome offer when you first open your business online. Something like 10% off for mentioning you found us on Google is an easy choice.
Continue on to post as often as you can. Interesting news and humor are some options to consider as well as promotions or discounts.
Direct Messaging
Direct messaging can be a great option to offer customers a quick way to get in touch. Simply enable the functionality from your locksmith Google My Business Page and you’re good to go.
Following Up With Insights
Once your page has been active for a little while, you’ll be able to view insights about how your locksmith company is performing in Google search. Phone calls, visits to your website and the actual keywords people found you for will be listed here. This is especially useful as you try to add more digital marketing because this is a graph that will show the impact or lack thereof of different efforts you try over the years.
Keeping track of your monthly performance reports will allow you to double down on what’s working best for you.
We consistently use this data as a core component on locksmith local search engine optimization services. This in combination with call tracking and Google Analytics compromise the foundation of being able to track a good digital marketing campaign.