As the owner of a home service business, you may or may not know much about Google and their suite of tools.

If you don’t know much about Google, you probably still know one thing: Google is always listening.

Just kidding … Sort of.

As much as this might be unsettling, it is just one of Google’s many ways of gathering information to create even more customized experiences for their consumers.

Whether you like Google or not, you’ll want to be Google’s friend because they have a full suite of tools that help you get in front of prospective customers.

As a business owner, you should at least have a Google My Business (GMB), Google Search Console, and Google Analytics. In this article, we will cover what these profiles are and how they help you build your businesses online presence.

1. Google My Business

If you were to only get one Google tool and call it a day, this would be the one to get. Google My Business helps your company look approachable in an online marketplace.

To give you an idea of the difference between having a Google My Business profile set up and not having one set up, here are two examples:

Example of What Not Having a Google My Business Profile Is Like

Your prospective customer is walking down an online street and they see an alleyway with a cardboard sign with an arrow drawn in the direction of a rusted metal door and the words “Home Repair Services - Open Some Days.”

Example of What Having a Google My Business Profile Is Like

Your prospective customer is walking through an online plaza where all of the businesses are clearly marked. Your sign is bright enough to read, day or night, and your hours are clearly marked on the sign on your door.

You could see how one breeds confidence and peace of mind in potential customers, while the other provides uncertainty.

Since most contract services involve entering homes, working on homes, or even servicing commercial buildings, you probably already know how important it is for your customers to trust that you will do a good job.

The Features of Google My Business

On your Google My Business account, you can include information like:

• Business name

• Company website

• Business location

• Operating hours

• Contact information

• Business photos

• Social media accounts

• Products and services

The more information you include, the more your customers are able to learn about what you offer and when you are available before they even contact you.

Three things you can actively do with you GMB profile once you fill out essential information:

• Post updates about your business

• Receive messages from customers

• Respond to and view reviews

There are many benefits to having a Google my business profile, but the most biggest benefits are building trust with your customers and reminding Google your business is still alive and well.

To use Google My Business, you will need to start by creating a business gmail account with Google. When you fill out information for your gmail, Google will give you the option to set up a GMB profile at the same time.

From there, they will request a link to your website and other information to set up your GMB profile. To verify your company’s address and existence, Google will send a postcard to the listed business address with a code to complete the registration.

2. Google Search Console

Google Search Console allows you to perform back-end checks of your website. This tool is primarily for managing the technical aspects of your site, like indexing, webpage crawling, site errors, backlinks, and search results.

Those are the technical terms, but here it is in more straightforward terms:

Indexing

Google is like an online library of websites, content, and basically anything you want to find that exists on the internet. Each page on you site can be indexed and found in that library or purposely left out.

You might be wondering why you would want to leave a page out. Some reasons you may want to leave a page out are if you have a page with duplicate content (a printable version), if it is a landing page, or if it is a private page.

Web Page Crawling

Webpage crawling involves Google exploring your website for content. If your pages are linked together, Google will be able to easily crawl them.

However, in some instances Google might not come across a webpage. In that case, you can request Google indexes a page. By doing this for your most important pages, you can make sure Google finds and indexes pages you want to rank.

For an electrical company who does repair, installation, and inspection in North Carolina, some of your most important pages will probably be your

• Electrical repair service page

• Electrical installation service page

• Electrical inspection service page

• Cary location page

• Durham location page

• Garner location page

These service pages and location pages help show your customers what services you provide and where you provide them.

Site Errors

Google Search Console will check your website for any errors. These errors could include page loading errors, inability to crawl page, issues redirecting a page, and issues with your server.

Site errors can seem like this far off idea, but they’re important to monitor. If your site is full of errors, your customers will likely run into that error when they visit your website and Google will start to lower you in the ranks.

Backlinks

This allows you to see internal and external links and where they are coming from (what website page). Internal links include links from one of your own pages to another one of your pages. External links come from other sites linking to a page on your website.

Through the tool, you will also be able to see the text used to refer to the link to your site. For instance, you could either see “HVAC Services in Charlotte,” or “here,” as text to describe a link to your site.

It is clear which one you’d prefer to describe a link to your HVAC company located in Charlotte, NC. Just like you want external sources talking about your website to clearly describe what they’re linking to on your site, you will also want to describe links on your website in detail.

Search Results

This portion of the tool will show you what queries your customers are typing into Google and finding you for. For a plumbing company in Cary, NC, you’d hope to be found for search queries like “plumbing repair,” “plumbing services in Cary, NC,” and “plumbing inspection.”

The search results section will also display what pages of yours are seen and clicked the most in Google search results. If you have a really well written service page, city page, or blog post, that could end up appearing in a lot of searches search results, creating a high amount of impressions and clicks.

Impressions are the amount of people that see the preview of your content on the search results page. Clicks are the amount of people who saw that preview and decided to click into it. Customers will usually decide to click into it if it accurately describes what they were looking for when they typed in their search queries.

When used properly, this tool can help you increase your ranking, traffic, and SEO. To set up Google Search Console, you will need to enter your website’s URL and then verify that you own the website.

3. Google Analytics

Google Analytics can be one of the most confusing Google Suite tools to use if you aren’t sure what to do with it. However, if you know how to use it, it can provide you with a wealth of knowledge on the traffic and analytics of your website.

Google analytics will show you general metrics like:

Total website traffic = the total amount of visits to your site.

Organic traffic = the amount of visits that came to your site through a Google search.

Direct traffic = the traffic that came from direct links to your site.

Paid traffic = the traffic you receive from ads you pay for.

Referral traffic = the traffic that was referred to your site by an external website.

They will allow you to check what area your users are located, what pages they are viewing, how long they stay on each page, and the bounce rate (the percentage of users that leave your site directly after viewing one page rather than clicking on another link).

Depending on how in-depth you want to get with Google analytics, you can also set goals for specific pages on your website to give yourself a metric to reach for.

To begin using Google Analytics, you will have to create a “property” within the tool connected to your website’s URL. They will provide a Google ID which you will either paste into the header of your website or you will place into a section your website platform has designated specifically for your Google Analytics ID.

Use the Google Suite to Optimize Your Home Service Business Website

While some of the Google suite tools can be difficult to learn at first, they are all super useful in helping you optimize your contract service business website.

Interested in learning more about how to get these Google tools set up? Check out these blogs:

• 3 Steps To Set Up Google Search Console for Your Contract Service Business

• How To Set Up Google My Business for Your Contract Service Business

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