Google My Business for coffee shops is essential. There is no other way around it as 46% of all Google searches are for local businesses. The key to your coffee shop appearing for those terms is to have a Google My Business profile.
In this post, we are going to cover what a Google My Business listing is as well as how you can optimise for your coffee shop or cafe.
In a hurry? Skip ahead to the section you want to know more about.
- What is Google My Business and why should my coffee shop have a listing?
- Creating my listing
- Optimising my Google My Business listing for coffee shops
- Managing your customer reviews
1. What is Google My Business and why should my coffee shop have a listing?
We understand that as a coffee shop owner/ manager you are incredibly busy. If you have a spare 15 minutes we think this is one of the best places to invest a little time.
Why? Google is the worlds most popular search engine. You probably already knew that! If you are wanting to know about where something is it is likely having a Google is the first thing you will do.
Without getting too in-depth on the technical details and the history of Google search results, if the search is for a type of business or service it is highly likely the prominent position will be Google My Business results.
As you can see the top section of the results is showing Google My Business listings. If you don’t have one, you have no chance of appearing for searches relevant to your coffee shop.
Creating a Google My Business listing is free and doesn’t take that long to set up. You won’t regret it.
2. Creating my listing
Now you know why you need a listing lets get creating!
First, you will need to visit Google My Business to create your listing. Click on “manage now” to start creating your listing. You will need a Google account to do this. If you don’t already have an account you will be asked to register one for free.
You will then be taken through some fairly self-explanatory screens.
The main one to note is the select a business category that best fits your business. At this stage, you can select one although more can be added later in the process.
Complete the rest of the details and you will then be asked to verify your business location. Google will send you out a letter with a code on it. When you receive this letter you just need to login into your account and enter the code.
In the meantime, you can finish creating your profile it just won’t appear in any results until verified.
When you first see the Google My Business dashboard don’t fear! There are a lot of things to look at but these are the essentials you need to focus on.
Firstly, visit the info tab. Fill in all the relevant sections for your business. Remember, the more information you can provide the better Google can rank you. If your coffee shop also offers others, this is where you can add additional categories.
When you have completed the info tab it is time to head over to the photos tab. Upload the best photos you have of your business. Your logo and cover photo are a must, any other photos you can provide of your coffee shop to add further context is perfect.
These are the main things you need to complete to have your profile visible on Google for local business searches.
3. Optimising my Google My Business listing for coffee shops
Now we want to look at the extra features that can help you get some more customers through the door.
The magic is under the posts tab. Within this tab, you have a few options for getting your best content seen by Google searchers. Let’s break down the different posts available.
- COVID-19 update – during the current climate giving your customers updates about how your operations may have changed is vital. Use this update wisely and make sure you are only using it for COVID-19 related changes, not for a limited time frappe you are launching next week.
- Offer – if you re looking to run a special offer this is the one for you. You can upload a photo, offer title, start date, end date, offer details, T&Cs, voucher code and a link to redeem. Make the photo and title as eye-catching and as clear as possible to maximise the placement.
- What’s new – this is where you would do your “standard” updates. Think more like what you would post on Facebook but you don’t need to be as frequent. Once a week is more than enough for this post type.
- Event – as you would imagine, this is where you would post information about an event you are hosting. For example, you could use this for a coffee tasting, pizza evening, afternoon tea special etc. This post type allows you to add an image, event title, start date, end date, event details and a button with a web link.
- Product – this is the least applicable to most coffee shops but if you do sell any products online, this is the perfect place to add them. You can add an image, product title, product category, price, description and button with a web link. If you sell custom blends or branded items this is where you need to add it.
4. Managing your customer reviews
The last thing to mention about Google My Business is reviews. You are going to start receiving customer reviews from people who have visited your coffee shop/ cafe.
We suggest putting some time aside once a week to reply to all the reviews you receive, positive or negative. People who had a great experience appreciate the response and replying to negative comments show that you have acknowledged the issue and you are working with the disgruntled customer to resolve it.
Keeping reviews under check is important as these will appear on Google searches for your coffee shop.
Something free from BrewRound to you
At BrewRound, we specialise in helping coffee shops grow their revenue. We provide coffee shops with mobile ordering technology so you can take orders from customers who are on the go. The best thing is there is no joining fee and no monthly fixed cost. Just pay a small commission on orders that come in via BrewRound. Find out more about how BrewRound can help your coffee shop.
In summary…
In a nutshell, that is what Google My Business has to offer your coffee shop or cafe. The beauty of Google My Business is that it doesn’t have too many options and takes minimal time to maintain. If you didn’t want to take advantage of the custom posts it is pretty much a set and forget it task except for reviews.
Make sure you create a Google My Business listing for your coffee shop or cafe today!
