Turn On Your Google My Business Email Notifications

Make Sure You Get All Of The Google My Business E-mail Alerts and Messages You're Looking For

In this episode, Bob and Jesse are encouraged by a recent client interaction to share the incredibly useful costless Google My Business alerts that y'all may non be taking advantage of! These Google My Concern notifications offer email notifications and alerts which can inform you of numerous potential client interactions that can be transformed into actionable metrics for your company!

Also, we desire to invite you to participate as a educatee in the beta version of our online courses! You benefit with free access to our courses and the ability to assist shape and meliorate these courses for future users.

Cheque this episode out today for slap-up tips and more!

What you'll larn

  • How to turn your alerts on for your Google My Business page.
  • What sort of information you can admission in your GMB alerts.
  • The advantages of using Google'south personalized insights.
  • The value of experimenting with these free reports to find data that's right for you!

Here is the Transcript for Episode 81

Caleb Baumgartner: Thank you for checking out this episode of Local SEO Tactics, where nosotros bring tips and tricks to become found online. In this episode, nosotros're exploring an ofttimes disregarded characteristic of Google My Business. Bob and Jesse will walk you through Google's free GMB reports and explain the advantages of using these reports to create actionable metrics for your business concern. Also, again, we are request for your participation and our digital courses. We are looking for students to engage the beta version of our online courses completely gratis. Aid us to test our courses and ameliorate their functionality. Y'all'll be given free access to these courses, designed to up your SEO savvy and aid yous improve your spider web presence. And at present, to Bob and Jesse, enjoy the show.

Jesse Dolan: Welcome back to Local SEO Tactics, where we bring you tips and tricks to get establish online. I'm your host, Jesse Dolan here today with Bob Brennan.

Bob Brennan: Howdy.

Jesse Dolan: And Bob, you've got another ski map dorsum there versus terminal episode. What'south what's the second ane there?

Bob Brennan: That is Breckinridge.

Jesse Dolan: Nice.

Bob Brennan: And then we've got that upwards there. I got my skis. I'g washed skiing for the year, so I won't be skiing till next year.

Jesse Dolan: It'south only like halfway through the season though, human being.

Bob Brennan: Yeah, I tore my ACL, so I got to get that repaired. I'chiliad going to get it done in April. So no more skiing for me the rest of the season or hockey or golf or annihilation.

Jesse Dolan: But tubing. Just a tuber now.

Bob Brennan: Aye, exactly. That's about all I can do.

Jesse Dolan: I'k I'm a pretty mean tuber myself. So don't feel don't feel bad. Don't let anybody make funny.

Bob Brennan: Peachy. Or jello wrestling. My jello wrestling career is effectively over.

Jesse Dolan: Very underrated sport, past the way.

Bob Brennan: Information technology is.

Jesse Dolan: I'g happy to hear that. So, ane matter I wanted to make sure I mentioned everybody before we dig into the episode here, Bob, is we've been talking nearly these digital courses that we're planning on launching. We're making a lot of good progress. We've got a number of courses, kind of rough outlined some in more item than others. But as we said in the terminal few episodes really here now with everybody listening, we're looking for feedback from you really on 2 levels considering these courses are for yous.

Every bit nosotros've been talking with Sue and some episodes and, and without Sue, Bob in some of our regular episodes, we have this show, which is basically like a do information technology yourself version of SEO. We put out information here guided past our audience for what to talk most, where to help. And on the other end of the spectrum, nosotros're for rent. Everything we talk near hither we do as a business, which is why we're talking nearly it and having some noesis. In between, is these digital courses to kind of accept it further than the podcast does, right? To teach you some things a cocky-paced course, and we're doing information technology a plus in my stance. It'southward going to wait expert and it's going to have the correct material. It's going to have the correct spot for y'all to bound in based on your talent and your skill set and be very, very impactful.

That'south enough patting on the back at that place. I judge my question I'thou trying to become to with everybody is we desire to know courses you lot want, correct? What topics? What things? What is it that yous want to learn? What is it that you want to know to dig into yourself, to make an affect? Become to localSEOtactics.com/courses and nosotros've got a one question survey we're looking for your feedback on. Just pick from the list of what would be interesting for you, what you would pay money for, you know, whether that'southward $7 or $700. Not and so much caring well-nigh that at this point, but just what would you invest in for your time and your coin and to acquire. Go out to localSEOtactics.com/courses. Let us know your feedback on that.

And then secondly, later on you take that, nosotros're going to inquire you lot if yous desire to be a beta student, somebody who can spring into these courses, take information technology for free, take them for gratis fifty-fifty, but so also give us the feedback, help us tailor it to assist us make sure you know anything from typos and grammar to "Hey, that video sucked," or "This didn't really explain it." Whatever it is. Beta students, should exist self-explanatory for kind of what you're getting in store for. Looking for some feedback, looking for some merchandise off, only you lot're going to become everything for free. And so bank check it out. LocalSEOtactics.com/courses. Let me get your feedback. Honey to get you a signed up to come across if you can be a beta pupil and help usa produce this for you.

So that'due south, that's. What we're going to talk nearly hither today is something that came up kind of organically this week inside our visitor. One of our clients had received an email through Google My Business, which is going to be the topic here. Google My Concern, it's something we haven't touched on in a few episodes here that nosotros need to once more, and this is the perfect spot to exercise it. Customer received an email most the Google My Business, which is a bunch of stats, which I'one thousand going to share my screen hither in a lilliputian bit and evidence everybody that's watching on video here. Only the question was, "Hey, how do I enable this? How did this show upwards fifty-fifty?" But some wondering by the customer and we've got to talk and say, "I don't call back everybody knows how to go far and turn on and off these alerts inside your Google My Business."

Google My Concern, like we said before, it's free, correct? If y'all're doing local SEO, you got to have your Google My Business concern gear up. Turn on the reports for your Google My Business organization. They're going to share stats. They're going to share insights and all kinds of smashing stuff with y'all.

And so what we're going to practice is real quick, I'm just going to kind of talk through and walk through what information technology is you lot tin can turn on and your Google My Business and what each of these areas is existent quick, and then prove y'all a sample of their insights report, which is just something that's pretty cool. Then let me share my screen here.
And Bob, as nosotros get through this, if you accept whatsoever questions about anything you feel like I should expand on everybody for, and simply kind of being that vocalism, go alee and chime in and holler about that. I'll try not to dive also deep in each i of these, but yet talk about it enough to give it credit. Slide that over, get a skillful full screen. If yous're listening to us on the podcast, if yous want to check out this, I'll try to talk through it. This is going to be kind of visual, so yous might want to jump over to the YouTube version. Go to localSEOtactics.com. Each episode, if you become to our episode pages or simply click on the podcast link, yous'll see all of our recent episodes. Each page is going to have the YouTube version embedded on at that place too. So if yous need to notice that, but go to localSEOtactics.com and you tin can follow along here.

And so to access this and to observe what you can toggle on and off, you're going to log into your Google My Business, business.google.com, and you should use whatever login that y'all used to prepare your Google My Business organisation the starting time fourth dimension. I guess fair disclaimer here, you accept to have Google My Business organization fix up to exercise this. If you oasis't set up Google My Business yet, check out some of our first episodes. Over again, on our website, y'all tin get access to those. We tell you how to set it up, how to optimize information technology and practise some of that. So this is kind of bold that you've washed all that. Now, y'all want to be tuned into their reports.
So over on the left-paw side, you can see there's going to exist a button that says settings. Click on that. And then you're going to see something very similar to what I take in my screen here, a bunch of cheque boxes. Some of them are going to be checked by default, similar this of import updates at the acme, Google's going to send yous of import updates, period, right? You're not going to opt out of that. They don't allow y'all to. Only pretty much everything else on this listing is going to be up to you if you desire to go information technology via email or not.

Customer messages, that's going to be a pretty important ane. Like information technology says hither, alert when customers ship a message to your business. You're going to want to be aware of that, right? Bob we've talked before about whether it be a phone call or an electronic mail, fifty-fifty a Facebook message. If your customers and your clients are contacting yous, you want to exist alerted to that equally a concern possessor, as a marketing manager, what accept you. Turn that ane on.

Customer reviews, updates about reviews for your business organization profile. Y'all're going to want that i on. If somebody leaves a review on your Google My Business organisation, which over again, I'm non fifty-fifty going to bring it up because I know, Bob, you'll talk for a half hour just like I would nearly how of import this is. Getting reviews on your Google My Business, super important. Bank check out some of our previous episodes on that. Check this box. At present that's going to tell you when you become a review. If you're not responding to reviews and replying to your reviews inside Google My Business organisation, this'll exist a skilful trigger for you to do that. As soon as you get the warning from Google, click on over, get into your GMB and answer to that client and customer and tell them happy you are, that they shared their review. But then also of grade, sometimes you're going to go a bad review, right? Whether that was accidental, we've seen that, Bob, in our businesses. Somebody leaves you a three-star or a one-star and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm so pitiful. That that meant to exist five." Right?

Bob Brennan: Yeah. Yeah. I hateful, I've had people sing praises. If you look at the comments, they're like, "Oh, these guys are great." And they leave similar a two star review and you're like, "Wait, what happened?"

Jesse Dolan: So you tin be alerted to that and then yous can reach out to that client and have them change that. And also, if something's something negative has happened, or I should say, erroneous has happened with negative reviews. If in that location'due south somebody out there, that'due south got a bunch of their buddies that but want to wreak havoc on you, and they all leave a agglomeration of one star reviews, five of them, you're going to go review alerts on all those and exist enlightened of that sooner than later, right? And not notice information technology four months downward the line.

Then click on your client reviews, it's i of the most important alerts for you to exist having in hither. Some other 1 that'south pretty of import equally the question and answers. Once more, we've talked about that topic in a separate podcast, but basically, everyone can go out at that place and ask a question on your Google My Business list and everyone can reply a question. Now, historically, when you plow this alarm on, it'southward kind of historically known that it's a little buggy. Google, doesn't always transport y'all anybody. That'south getting better. Every month that nosotros become forward, they seem to be doing a ameliorate task, only simply asterisk there, but this is going to alert you for questions and answers. And the reason, once more, I stress this answers role is considering anybody can go out an answer. You want to know if Bob asks a question on my business concern and you know, whatever Susie answers it not how I would take as a business owner. I want to run across that. So I can jump in there. And I provide my answer equally a business owner. Very, very of import.

Bookings, if you're using the Bookings characteristic within Google My Business organization or the Quotes, yous're going to desire to turn those on. So y'all get communications that somebody's scheduled something or is looking for a quote on something. If yous're not using those features inside your Google My Business, then, so don't worry about information technology. When in doubt, go ahead and turn them on.

Bob Brennan: Yeah. I simply want to throw this out too. You know, I'yard in my fifties. Jess, you're non. But the world is, I think one of my kids was telling me 25% of the population the U.s. population is under the age of 18.

Jesse Dolan: Okay.

Bob Brennan: So in some means, plain our population is aging, but the point is, y'all know, if the younger generation is going to potentially employ your bookings and your quotes, you may call back you lot don't really want to apply it or shouldn't utilize it. I would requite it a become and only use it for a couple of months, but pay attention. Yous know, the fact that y'all have it on, and run into what happens. Because you may exist surprised that again, you're talking about the younger generation that would much rather text than call y'all or talk to yous or face you or whatever the case is. So, just kind of my two cents on that.

Jesse Dolan: Yeah. I retrieve that's a smashing thing to elaborate on. Y'all know, not only, you know, let's say for bookings, you know, that's something you have to leverage and use inside your Google My Business. And if you determine to, which to your point, why would y'all not?

Bob Brennan: Right.

Jesse Dolan: So make sure you plow this on and then you're alerted to when that happens. Right? Then kind of a 2-part deal here. The screen that we're looking at, for everybody that's following along, these are for the alerts. This is going to trigger, you're enabling these emails to come to y'all. If you lot're allowing bookings and assuasive quotes, like Bob said, just to reach more people out at that place, fifty-fifty if y'all're just testing it, brand sure you come back in here and you're turning these alerts on so you can get the notifications.

Next one down hither, is photos. Similar it says, tips and updates about photos on your business concern contour. That'south a skillful one to accept on too. Simply for the visibility. If information technology's a user-generated photo, if people are liking the photos of you and things like that. Business health profile, this is an important 1 to have turned on. As information technology says hither in the description, alerts and suggestions to help y'all keep your info accurate on Google My Business organisation profile or on your business profile. Sometimes Google will transport y'all a question, "Hey, are you open on New Year'south?" "Hey, are you lot nonetheless in business?" If you haven't touched your Google My Business for a while, they may reach out to y'all. Basically, merely understanding that the category here, business profile wellness, alerts and suggestions to help keep your info authentic on your business profile. That sounds a lilliputian, maybe vague or broad.

If Google's contacting you nearly is your list authentic or not, that's something you want sensation on, right? A lot of the Google My Business organization functions are automated with bots and algorithms. If they suspect your listing is not accurate or your clothes or whatever, make certain you're checking this and then they can send you lot that notification. So you lot tin say, "No, I'm still hither. I'yard nonetheless alive." Or, "Yeah, I am closed that day." Or whatever. The more authentic your information can be the more trust Google's going to take in it and then the more likely you lot are to be ranking higher and getting the exposure. If they don't trust your business organization, if it's not accurate and things similar that, yous're going to get buried in the rankings. So turn that on. You're going to get some practiced stuff coming through there. Very critical communications.

The adjacent i, correct under that is one I'chiliad going to take a detour here in a 2nd and show you lot a screenshot of an example. This is one of the virtually impactful ones, and this is the ane that's triggering this episode. It'due south the insights, personalized insights and tips most your business profile. Google is going to send you a summary basically, is a proficient way to put it, for what'due south happening with your Google My Business profile. This ane we see hither, this was something that was delivered. It'southward near a month worth of data. I've redacted some information just to protect the business here and some of the stats, but if you lot're looking on the video here, yous can kind of see where this is just a quick executive summary type report.

Information technology would show your business organisation name and it'due south going to say here in this example, 4,789 people establish you on Google. Here are the elevation search queries used to find y'all. Okay, now nosotros're talking about some pretty sweetness data from Google, correct? How much exposure did my GMB listing get? How many people establish y'all? And then what are the acme search queries that were used to find you? These are hopefully some of the peak queries that yous're trying to be found for. If you're doing your SEO properly and optimizing your Google My Business organisation, which again, nosotros've got some episodes on that and we're here to help if you need that manus to hire out for that. This is going to tell you the meridian three keywords and similar information technology says, used by 259 people, used by 78 people, used by 55 people. Going to give you lot the acme 3 keywords and basically rank those. That's pretty good information. That'due south great feedback for you to get.

And then, here is a little scrap more tangible stats for an affect on your business. It's going to tell you how many people inquire for directions. In this instance, information technology was slightly down from Dec. And so not only does it tell y'all in this case, 17, only grades you against the previous month, are you moving up? Are y'all moving down? How many people called you in this instance? 11, which is 38% up from Dec. So that's kind of interesting, right? Just to dig into the details. The directions were down by calls were up. Okay. Interesting. And so over hither, ninety people visited your website. This one, in this instance, 34% up from December.

And then, at the bottom, they're going to give you a snippet of a review. Sometimes, they'll mix in another features here. Like those core analytics are the same each time, but so they're going to give yous a review. It'southward usually something that'due south either more recent, depends on how many you get. Either more recent or a review that had a lot more visibility that people saw. In each of these ii, you can see again if you lot're post-obit along in the video, in that location'll exist links within that email where you can merely jump, in this case, it's saying, "Stand out to customers with a postal service nearly your business. Create a mail." Click, boom. Go create a post. Click, read your reviews, respond to reviews, things like that.

And then this study correct here, on a monthly basis, you lot every bit a business concern owner or manager for your Google My Business organization, this is just a keen way for Google to just kind of requite y'all a quick tickle, quick reminder on what's happening with your listing. What kind of performance and what kind of stats should yous pay attention to.
Okay, and then that's the insights. Dorsum to the Google My Business organization settings here. Other ones real quick, product updates, posts. I shouldn't put them together. I was going to rattle through them quick, but we should requite them a little bit more diligence here. Production updates, occasional updates about new features and offers to meliorate your business profile. That 1's a little more marketing ish, correct? Sometimes for what they put out there, simply information technology can also say, "Hey, just so you know, the bookings feature is at present available in your GMB." You might want to be aware of that, so yous can turn it on.

Posts, it'll give you the updates and suggestions about your posts on your business organization contour. Are you lot doing a skillful task or not? What kind of trends are they seeing? That'due south e'er a good one to go as well for some insights. Reminders, alerts that remind yous to respond to messages, missed calls and booking requests. Like we're proverb upward here, you're getting alerts from bookings, also turn on reminders considering if yous didn't respond to that booking, you desire a follow-up reminder on that, right?

So feedback, that ane, again, gets a fiddling bit more than marketing-ish for Google My Business organization. This is where they're going to enquire for surveys for feedback and things like that. So I'll turn that one on and off as yous like. Then, that's the kind of quick nickel tour. Again, nosotros discover a lot of clients when nosotros start working with them on their Google My Business organization listings, we're in hither, we're looking at the profile, we're optimizing everything. And and then we're going into fix these alerts for ourselves. Always take a pause and ask them if they're doing this equally well for their logins. This is a log in past log in situation. This is not a profile situation, right?
So Bob, if you lot and I both had access to this, Google My Business, we'd be managing this separately for each of our own logins. Am I going to become this alert? Are you going to get that alert? It's not account-wide, it's user by user when yous log in.

Bob Brennan: Okay.

Jesse Dolan: So just be aware of that. And if I had a recommendation just to kind of close information technology out, I'd say, when in doubtfulness, turn them all on. Merely considering you're turning these on doesn't mean you're going to get an e-mail every week or every month on each of these areas. Plow them on, get the communications from Google. If you find it'southward kind of spammy or information technology's not relevant to you, you can go dorsum in and turn it off, but I'd rather accept yous see everything than to miss some of these things, right? Not beingness aware of it. So…

Bob Brennan: A quick question or comment, considering we're talking to a broad full general audition here and we don't know, we could be talking to concern owners, agencies, companies with a hundred employees visitor with thousands of employees and so along. What are your thoughts on a ratio or amount of time that you're spending in this GMB versus SEO efforts for let's say, 100,000 lower, 500,000, those are broad descriptors, but you know what I mean? Do you take whatever thoughts on how yous would allocate resources equally information technology relates to working on GMB versus SEO and whatever?

Jesse Dolan: Yes. Well obviously they definitely both go hand in paw. I hateful, so it's something you should always be looking at. There's direct piece of work you should be doing inside your Google My Business organisation listing every calendar week. Creating posts, uploading photos, moderating. I shouldn't say moderating. Replying to reviews. Things similar that.

The amount of fourth dimension would depend on the scale of the interactions, right? If you're getting 10 reviews per day versus one per calendar week, yous might be in there for a half hour, each day versus a half 60 minutes each week. Your posts, do y'all have some kind of marketing calendar that you already accept content that y'all're sharing on social media or a web log that yous just copy and paste that into a Google post or are y'all sitting downwards only in Google trying to come up with a post? Over again, that can mean five or ten minutes a week, doing it once a week. That could mean an 60 minutes depending on what you're doing there.

And so it'd be hard to necessarily kind of put bookends on up time elapsing. But I would say for sure, if you have a Google My Business listing, you should be doing something in there one time a week bare minimum. Creating posts, responding, reviews, those basic kinds of information. Aside from that, there's what services are you lot listing? Your business organization clarification. These other areas to optimize. Things like that.

Additionally, if you're getting in at that place once a calendar week, Google doesn't every calendar week, whorl out some new characteristic, but they're always improving Google My Business, adding a new feature, adding new attributes. With COVID in 2020, they added a lot of new attributes. Similar people vesture masks, temperatures are checked online services, curbside pickup. So jumping in there weekly, you're exposed to that to take advantage. If you can have advantage 2 weeks earlier your competitors did, you're only, y'all're but going to get a trivial bit more than business organisation if zilch else for those ii weeks I mean, which is definitely a render on your investment. Then-

Bob Brennan: I mean, if y'all're a 1000000 dollar business organisation, you should be probably, yous or somebody on your squad, should exist spending an 60 minutes a month on your GMB, you call back, or?

Jesse Dolan: Aye, mayhap even closer to an hour a week-

Bob Brennan: Oh, hour a week. Okay.

Jesse Dolan: Simply because again, yous should be getting a fair number of reviews if you're that level of business, unless you're selling a 100,000 dollar widgets, correct? You know what I'm saying?

Bob Brennan: Right. Correct.

Jesse Dolan: If I'yard selling, private jets then no, but for a typical local concern, yeah. If you're in that million dollar mark, I hateful, for sure, an hr a calendar week, perhaps even more than that actually, depending on some of those frequencies. So…

Bob Brennan: Yeah. I mean, if you're a restaurant, y'all're going to be putting more than time. So-

Jesse Dolan: Absolutely. Admittedly.

Bob Brennan: Slap-up stuff, Jess.

Jesse Dolan: Give thanks y'all, sir. Cheers. All correct. Let's get into our review. I've got a great five-star review here from Gresha. I hope I'thou saying that, right? Thank yous. It was left on iTunes or Apple podcasts. I should say. I'm kind of dating myself there. I approximate calling it iTunes, but it says, "Awesome podcasts have subscribed to. Kudos. Looking forrad to your side by side episodes." We've got those coming for you and reishi ramping up the frequency. If yous've been still listening here, Gresha, we've got Sue Ginsburg at present, we're pushing out two episodes per calendar week.

Bob and I were just talking before today, we will exist getting more and more than going out. Trying to go out to a goal of daily equally we calibration information technology up. So lots more than episodes coming and appreciate the great five-star review. Everybody else, we'd dear to become your feedback too. LocalSEOtactics.com. Go downwardly to the bottom. Like all of our links are pretty much at the bottom, correct? So if you're looking for something, localSEOtactics.com, gyre to the bottom. In this case, click on the link for reviews and we've got a quick jump link for Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Google My Business organisation, Facebook, wherever yous want to go out u.s. a review, we would actually appreciate information technology. If it's just a rating, swell. If you had dropped some comments like Gresha did, even meliorate. We really capeesh information technology and we'll go along reading them on the evidence. Whatever closing thoughts, Bob?

Bob Brennan: No, no. Information technology'south just GMB, to me, it's a huge part of the equation and you lot've got to pay attention to it.

Jesse Dolan: Admittedly Pay attention and enable the alerts then Google can communicate with you, right?

Bob Brennan: Yep.
Jesse Dolan: But to summit it off. So, appreciate everybody for tuning in and checking united states out and we'll catch you side by side time.

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