Google Business Pages (formerly Google My Business) are the #1 best tool for small businesses looking to thrive online, and the best part is it’s free! But knowing the tricks is key to beating the competition. Here are our top tips:

1. Add Your Frequently Asked Questions – Most businesses know about the Questions & answers section, where customers can post questions to the business. Most businesses do NOT know they can prefill their own questions and answers to preemptively address any common concerns they get, which should help turn more visitors into phone calls and leads.

2. Add Your Services as Products – The Products section sounds like its reserved only for, you know, Products. But if you’re a service-based business, you can also add your services as Products as well! This makes your listing more informative and also provides more context to Google around what you do, making it easier to rank you highly for your services. Bonus tip: you can even add GIFs here!

3. Respond to Reviews – This is no longer an optional thing for businesses to do. A 2021 survey showed 89% of consumers are ‘highly’ or ‘fairly’ likely to use a business that responds to all of its online reviews. It shows potential customers you care enough about your reputation to respond to everyone and take their opinions (even the negative ones) seriously, which builds trust.

There’s more free tools like Google Business Pages out there you can use to grow your business. If you haven’t gotten it already, you should check out our 11 Free Tools to Grow Your Business guide for those.