Mastering Your Google Business Profile with Marilyn Jenkins

Discover the untapped potential of Google Business Profiles with digital marketing veteran Marilyn Jenkins as she reveals how this free tool can dramatically increase your local visibility and phone inquiries.

Many business owners make a critical mistake – setting up their Google Business Profile once and forgetting about it. But as Marilyn explains, treating your profile like a social media platform that demands regular engagement can be the difference between being buried in search results or appearing prominently in the map pack where 50-80% of searchers click.

The conversation reveals surprising insights about how Google evaluates and ranks local businesses. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need hundreds of 5-star reviews to outrank competitors. Marilyn shares a remarkable case study where simply optimizing a neglected profile increased a client's incoming calls by 42% in just six weeks. The best part? Maintaining this valuable digital asset requires only 10 minutes weekly.

For podcasters who also operate local businesses, this episode delivers practical, actionable advice on maintaining consistent information across platforms, selecting the right business categories, and creating a seamless review collection process. Don't miss Marilyn's counterintuitive tip about who can leave reviews (hint: it's not just customers) and why a perfect 5-star rating shouldn't be your goal. Whether you're a seasoned digital marketer or just starting to explore local SEO, this conversation provides the blueprint for dominating local search and turning Google searchers into paying clients.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Communication Connection Community
• 0:32 Introducing Marilyn Jenkins, Digital Marketing Veteran
• 1:22 Why Google Business Profiles Matter
• 4:44 Key Elements and Common Challenges
• 9:25 Reviews and Best Practices
• 12:27 Increasing Website Traffic and Phone Calls
• 14:02 Episode Wrap-Up and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to Communication Connection Community, the podcaster's podcast. This podcast takes a deep dive into modern day communication strategies in the podcasting space. We chat with interesting people who make the podcasting and speaking spaces exciting and vibrant. We also dive into the podcasting community with news updates, latest trends and topics from this ever-evolving space. So strap in, it's going to be one amazing ride. Let's dive into today's episode and my guest today is Marilyn Jenkins. She's a digital marketing veteran with over 16 years of experience. The founder of MJ Media Group LLC and Law Marketing Zone. Her expertise lies in leveraging paid advertising and SEO, particularly for optimizing Google business profiles to propel business growth. Her recent published book, the Google Business Profile Training Guide, which is available we'll make sure the link is posted, by the way, in the show notes later delves into the intricacies of local search domination by maximizing Google business profiles. She is also a fellow podcaster and a podcast guest. Marilyn, welcome to the podcast, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 1:20

I'm very excited to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:22

I have to say, firstly, congratulations on taking the huge leap maybe even a leap of faith in some ways to joining the world of podcasting as a host. How does that feel so far?

Speaker 2: 1:33

You know it feels really good. I've gotten a really good response from asking people to be on the podcast and, yeah, I'm just excited. I just enjoyed being a guest and it just made sense to take the step.

Speaker 1: 1:44

And at the recording of this episode, it's the summer of 2024. You're getting started in the space and, as I said, congratulations. I know it's going to be a phenomenal place and you'll just continue to meet some great people as you go.

Speaker 2: 1:58

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Certainly happy to have a conversation with you after today, but you know what? It's a really great place to be. We've met through a great platform as well, called Podmatch, which you know. Alex Sanfilippo is a great guy and he's done some great things set up here. We're going to talk today about something, though. That is something that I think a lot of business owners just really drop the ball on, and that's why you've made this. You know a huge part of what you do the Google business profile and the importance behind it. So why is it so important that the Google business profile is something that we should sit up and take notice of?

Speaker 2: 2:33

Well, first off, it's a free service provided by Google, and most of us might remember it, and a lot of people still call it Google my Business. Well, google business profile is basically like the eighth iteration of Google Places. It seems like they rebranded every time. They add a bunch of new features to it. But this is one place where you can, for free, tell Google exactly what kind of search you want to be found for, and if you do it right and you get the engagement that Google wants, you can be in that map pack right. There's always three in the map, so think about when you're a consumer, what do you do? You Google it right, so you Google it on your phone. 50 to 80% of searches, according to Google, click on the map pack. So that's where you want to be and that is your Google business profile.

Speaker 1: 3:19

And, let's face it, let's address maybe the elephant in the room, google. Even though it's a noun and a verb, it definitely is probably the most popular search engine for most individuals. Would you say that's true?

Speaker 2: 3:32

That is true, that is statistically true. And then, of course, youtube is the next one.

Speaker 1: 3:36

Google. What an ingenious thing to have. There's no monopoly or anything, because there are others, but everyone says, even if you're not using Google as your search engine, people will say Google that right, so it's clearly evident that it's very important to sit up and take notice of this. What are the most important aspects, though, of your Google business profile that maybe folks aren't aware of?

Speaker 2: 3:58

Well, the most important is your name, address and phone number needs to be consistent across your Google business profile, as well as your website and any other place you're listed online. I mean the name has to be the actual legal name of your business. It can't be adding keywords to it or your city to it. They'll reduce your ranking for that. So that's most important. The second is choosing your categories. You can tell Google exactly what you do with your primary category and then the less important categories, so now they know where to show you when the searches come up. So those are the two biggest ones that you should do.

Speaker 1: 4:35

What are some of the challenges that you're seeing that individuals have when it comes to having an effective Google business profile? What are some of the main things that come up for you time and time again?

Speaker 2: 4:47

The biggest thing I'm finding is people set it up once, they don't completely set it up and then they never go back. So they look at it as a place to store reviews and then they never do anything with the reviews. So you have to think of Google as I know this sounds weird, but as a social media platform. They want engagement and they want a good user experience. That's how they stay the number one search engine right. So if you're consistently making sure that you reply to reviews, positive or negative, you add Q&A, you add services, any little thing that you can add, do something little every week, you're showing Google look, I'm engaged, I'm interested. I want to make sure that the users that come through have a good experience. If you have less reviews than your competition and they're not engaged in their Google business profile, you can be most likely are going to be ahead of them in the map pack.

Speaker 1: 5:41

So if I set this up years ago as Google my Business, am I now if I haven't kept up to date? Am I now out of date? Am I not getting the searches I want? Firstly because Google has changed it, but then also because I'm not active in it? Am I getting searches still when? How does that all work?

Speaker 2: 5:58

You could be. It depends on your competition in the area. You know, if you have a lot of reviews but you don't do any updates, but then you there's really no other competition around you. Yeah, of course you're going to show up, you know. But the thing is is that you need to be doing something. If you haven't updated it since it was called Google my Business, that means your hours of operation might not be correct. That means you might have questions that people have asked that you didn't answer. So there's a lot of play and there's a whole lot of different inputs. Now you can add photos and videos of your team and introduction of yourself. Like we see in reviews, they can be photos and that sort of thing. So it's expanded on what you can do. So I would say you probably are being found in some searches, but probably not the ones you want to be in.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Okay, all right. And reviews? I mean, it used to be under the Google, my business platform. It was all about reviews, all about reviews. Is that still where the money's at, so to speak? Is the reviews or all of these other elements, pieces that we should definitely be sitting up and taking notice of?

Speaker 2: 6:59

All of it is something we should be sitting up and taking notice of. Obviously, reviews is huge, but the striving for a 5.0, nobody walks on water all the time, so most people think a 4.7, 4.8, 4.9 is fine. So, yeah, you're going to get bad reviews. Everybody has a bad day, whether it's the reviewer or maybe one of your team members. The key is to reply to every review Professionally, address the problem. If it's an incorrect review, report it, so there's things that can be done. But, yeah, your reviews are incredibly important, but making sure you give Google enough information about your business so it can bring you up in the searches that you want to be found for.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Okay, and you're suggesting this should be something that I set some time aside every week to just check on it. How much time should I be spending on this?

Speaker 2: 7:45

10 minutes a week. Log in, I mean, and it's a great. It's a very simple management platform, management portal behind your Google business profile, and the interesting thing is is, if you don't claim it, your competition can claim it and change the phone number to theirs.

Speaker 1: 8:01

Oh interesting.

Speaker 2: 8:02

But I suggest taking like 10 minutes a week and add a photo, add a service, add a question and answer. Reply to review, pick something, there's something and they now even have posts. So if you write blog posts, put the blog posts on your Google business profile. If it's keyword rich, it tells Google more about who you should be found when the search is made.

Speaker 1: 8:25

These little things you're talking about. How much is this going to improve the traffic to my website?

Speaker 2: 8:30

It would improve it greatly. And just as an example, traffic to website and phone calls. We had a client that we were working with. Suddenly, over the course of a couple of weeks, my phone stopped ringing. So we went in, made some adjustments, cleared up some stuff, updated her hours of operation and her phone started ringing within 24 hours. Now a different client did nothing to their Google business profile, so we went in, helped them claim it, optimized it, got it going, kept track in their insights in the management portal and we increased their incoming phone calls by 42% in less than six weeks. Now how would it affect your business if you got 42% more phone calls? So that doesn't even count the direct. You know people. There's a directions button. How many people looked at the directions? There's a website button. How many people click that? So your insights tab will give you all the information on all the traffic you're getting.

Speaker 1: 9:31

And the reason why this is relevant. This is a podcast that's geared to podcasters, but a lot of people in the podcasting space still have businesses with addresses. Exactly so even though podcasts are global and you're having a larger, you're having a global reach and that's great for building your audience, it's still important to realize that there's that whole concept of being the local hero or being the person that's top of mind when they're searching you on where Google Exactly.

Speaker 2: 9:55

I mean lawyers, real estate agents. I even have a plumber who has a podcast. It's important for them to be found locally. So, absolutely, whether you're doing a podcast or you have a local business, if you've got a local presence, that's important and people can come into've got a local presence that's important and people can come into your office or your business.

Speaker 1: 10:15

That's important for you to make sure your Google business profile is set and ready and up to date, and you've already mentioned once a week. 10 minutes is, at least if you're not doing it yet is a good place to get started. If you want to do more, probably that's fine too. What are some of the best practices? If you haven't mentioned some of them yet, what are some of the best practices for maintaining a positive online reputation?

Speaker 2: 10:37

One of the big things on their Google business profile. If you are involved in holiday hours, make sure your hours of operation are updated. One of the more recent things is whenever you do a search for, say, I'm a consumer and I'm looking for a pizza place, okay, it will tell me on the listing recently updated and tell me what date you updated your hours. So if I know that I'm like around July 4th or maybe around Christmas or any kind of holiday time, I can see that you updated your hours yesterday. So if I'm not sure if Joe's pizza parlor or Betty's pizza parlor and Betty just updated, but Joe didn't, then clearly I'm going to go to Betty because I know she's open.

Speaker 1: 11:14

Right, right, yeah, for sure, and she probably has really good pizza too and, you know, wants people to. If they haven't figured it out yet, they're definitely going to. You mentioned earlier that reviews are still. Everyone wants reviews. They're still very important, as are some of the other tools now that Google has made available. How do I go about getting more reviews? What's the best way to do that? Is it just like ask people, or is there a better way?

Speaker 2: 11:36

It's. I tell my clients to make it part of your process. Every time you finish with a case, every time you finish with a job, every time you finish working with someone, ask for a review. I notice you have a QR code in the corner of your screen. Some of my clients that have retail locations have a QR code that takes them directly to the little box on Google with the five stars at the top and it says please review us. So when you're finished and you check out, they're asking for a review. Some restaurants put their QR code in the. What do you call that little wallet you check in? You know you ask for the check. It's in that little wallet thingy. What do you call the wallet thingy? I don't.

Speaker 1: 12:14

I'm trying to remember what do you call that wallet thingy, the receipt holder thing, the bill holder thing, I don't know?

Speaker 2: 12:20

Let the receipt holder thing, the bill holder thing.

Speaker 2: 12:22

I don't know, let's call it that, that's the technical term Folio, folio, maybe that's it, but they have a QR code in there. So what you want to do is you want to make it easy. You don't want to say, hey, carl, can you give me a review? Now, you got to go to Google, you got to type in, you got to find the right one. Nope, give them a link straight to that pop-up window and make it part of your business process to ask every single client. Now, if you have less than 10 reviews and you don't have enough clients to ask more reviews, ask your suppliers. There's nowhere in the terms of service that it has to be a customer. You can have a character review, wow. So that's the way you can build your reviews and don't get hung up on five stars. If you get a one star, be professional, reply to it. 4.7 and above is good.

Speaker 1: 13:06

I love it. I love it. Great insights here. The book, the Google Business Profile Training Guide. We'll make sure we post the link for that and all of your other information in the show notes. Awesome, anything you'd like to pass along to our listeners today, of huge value to them, that they can chew on.

Speaker 2: 13:22

I think it's just really important to look at your overall online strategy, right? Okay, have a digital strategy. Just look at overall. Don't get overwhelmed, pick one thing and don't try to be an influencer, unless that's what you want to be, but take one step at a time. You know how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So try to do a little something every day, or a little something every week.

Speaker 1: 13:44

I love it. I love it. My guest today has been Marilyn Jenkins. Amazing Congratulations once again on being in a podcast space and looking forward to all of your success, and thank you once again for being my guest today.

Speaker 2: 13:58

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: 14:01

And thank you for joining us today. Special thanks to our producer and production lead, dom Coriglio, our music guru, nathan Simon, and the person who works the arms all of our arms, actually my trusty assistant, stephanie Gaffour. If you like what you heard today, leave us a comment and a review, and be sure to share it with your friends. If you don't like what you heard, please share it with your enemies. Oh, and if you have a suggestion of someone who you think would make an amazing guest on the show, let us know about it. Drop us an email, askcarl at carlspeaksca. Don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter as well. You'll find all those links in the show notes, and if you're ready to take the plunge and join the over 3 million people who have said yes to podcasting, let's have a conversation. We'll show you the simplest way to get into the podcasting space, because, after all, we're podcast. Solutions made simple. We'll catch you next time.