I know, I know. Google My business has been around for years and everyone should know this. And maybe everyone already does, but if they all do, then they aren’t all using the categories in Google My Business to their advantage.
I’m still surprised every single week when we do a local visibility audit with a new client and find that they have only chosen 1 single category to represent themselves in GMB, when they could be using up to 10!
Now not every single industry will have 10 reasonable categories to choose from, that’s true, but there are plenty that can at least plug in a handful and that would greatly increase the amount of visibility at the local level and this leads to more phone calls and new business, so why wouldn’t you?
Take a close look.
Additional Categories In Google My Business
That blue link that says “Add another category” is an invitation to open your doors to more phone calls. And you can choose up to 10.
Make sure that these categories are related to what you actually do and don’t get frustrated if you can’t find the perfect category right now. Google has been adding to this list since they built this feature, it’s a work in progress, and if they don’t have what you need now. they probably will in the future.
In the meantime, in searching for the categories you can use, be creative with the services and products your company offers, type it into the category list and a drop-down menu with related categories will show up to help you out.
GMB Category Drop Down Menu example
And whatever you do, don’t add categories that you don’t belong in. This won’t help you. Once you’ve chosen up to 10 categories that represent your business on GMB, make sure you create a corresponding page on your website if you haven’t already done that and then optimize it. Having a category in GMB with a corresponding page on your website is a powerful signal that Google won’t ignore and will help you climb in the search engine results. And once again, this will help your phone keep ringing with new business.