What is Google My Business (And How to Set It Up For Your Yoga Studio)

We get asked all the time what is Google My Business and do I need to set it up for my yoga studio. In this article, I’ll tell you what it is and how to set it up for your yoga studio.

What is Google My Business

Google My Business is like your marketing assistant online. It’s an easy way for your yoga studio to be found when people search for local services. GMB is different than people finding you through your website. This is controlled by Google and shows local people in your area where you are and how to get in touch with you.

Anytime you’ve searched for something local to your area, you’ve probably seen the map results with local businesses. This is Google My Business in action.

Google My Business pulls in your phone number, web address, social media profiles if you have them, the type of business you are, your typical busy times, and reviews about your business.

One of the biggest things about having a listing up is to let people review your business and show those reviews to potential yoga students. So you’ll want to set this up as soon as you can.

You can also use GMB to share posts about your business. These will show under your listing and expire. Many yoga studios use it to showcase time sensitive information to share with people looking for your service.

So far, GMB is free for businesses to set up, but they are also allowing paid ads to show up in the results as well.

How to Set Up Google My Business

Aside from your website, setting up your Google My Business is one of the most important tasks to do for your online presence.

1. Make Sure You Have a Google Account

In order to create a Google My Business account, you’ll have to have a gmail or google account. This can either be your personal gmail account that you already have or you can create a Google account specifically for your GMB.

For instance, I manage several for clients and use my business email for all of them, so you can do the same.

2. Go to Google My Business

From here, you’ll want to click Manage now button to get going. If you aren’t signed into your Google account, it’ll ask you for your Gmail to get started.

3. Enter Your Business Name

This is what your business is called. As you start to type in your business, you might see your business name autocomplete in the field. If you see your name show up, then click on that. It means that Google has somehow already found your business and has created a listing for it and you just need to claim it.

This usually only happens if you’ve been open for a while and haven’t set up your GMB yet.

Most people are just getting started and probably won’t see your business there yet, so just add your business name.

4. Add Your Location

If you are a yoga studio, then you’ll want to say yes, that you have a location for customers to find you on Google Maps.

Don’t worry, if you’re a yoga instructor and go to clients on location, then go to the next step.

Once you say yes, you’ll just enter your address in the next screen

5. Add Service Area

If you’re a yoga instructor who meets clients at their location, then you can say not to the previous question and then fill out the service area. Enter as many cities as you service here.

6. Find Your Business Category

Start typing in yoga and choose which category best fits your business. Many of you will choose Yoga Studio, unless you’re a yoga instructor who meets your clients at their location.

7. Add Your Business Details

Here, you can add your website and phone number. These will be shared with anyone who finds your business online, so make sure they are correct.

8. Verify Your Business

Now you’ll need to finish this and the next screen will be different depending on how Google wants you to verify you business.

There are 3 ways Google might have you verify.

• Via mail – If they ask you for your address, then they will send you a simple postcard to that address so you can verify. Don’t worry if you clicked earlier that you go to clients’ location, this address won’t be published anywhere. They just need to use it to mail you a postcard. Expect to see it in 7-10 days. There will be a code on the postcard that you’ll enter to verify that you got it. If two weeks have gone by, then you might want to revisit Google My Business and request a new postcard
• Phone call – if they ask you for your phone number to verify, then you’re one of the lucky businesses to be able to verify quickly just with a phone call. Not many businesses will get this option.
• Email– Again, not many businesses will get an email, so if you have the option, then it will be a painless process.

9. Start Filling Out Your Business

While you wait for Google to verify your business, you can still start to add information to your GMB dashboard.

Some of the biggest things you’ll want to do is upload photos or videos to your account, add your yoga studio hours, upload your logo.

Once you verify your business, you’ll then be able to ask clients for reviews, add special posts on time sensitive items for your studio, and so much more.

10. Review Business Insights

After your site has been on Google My Business for a while, you can review your studio’s insights on GMG. For instance, you’ll see if people are clicking on your phone number to call you. Or if they ask for directions to your studio. You’ll even see what kinds of keywords people type in to find your yoga studio.

The information is pretty powerful way to see how your business is being found online and help direct you on the things you need to focus on.

FAQs

Here are a few popular questions people have when it comes to Google My Business

1. Can I just use GMB instead of creating a website?
   No. Always create your own website. Your website is yours, that you own and no one can change it. With these awesome marketing tools like Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook, their sole purpose is to get money from advertising and can change what they do at anytime.
   
   I’ve seen several people over the years who thought just having a Facebook Page was all they needed for their business. Then Facebook stopped showing Pages to people because people would leave Facebook. And those business who relied solely on that traffic had a hard time getting more customers.
   
   Instead, use GMB in addition to your website. This will bring more traffic and visibility to your business.
2. Can I remove the review section from Google My Business?
   Although you can’t remove this section from your listing, having the reviews can be very helpful to your studio. Many people will use reviews and testimonials to help make their decision. If your listings gets an unfair negative review, then there are ways to manage that and we’ll cover that in another post.
3. Will Google My Business Help with Search Rankings?
   Sort of, yes. If you set up your listing right, by adding all the business information and get reviews, you can be at the top of the listings for yoga studio or yoga instructor. And that’s a huge boost for local.
   Then you want to make sure you’re working on your website for local SEO so you’ll be found underneath the Google My Business section in the organic results. That’s powerful because your site will show up twice on the front page of Google.

Conclusion

Setting up Google My Business is a great, free way to gain online exposure for your yoga studio. Take some time this afternoon or this weekend to set up your listing to day and you’ll start to see how GMB can help grow your yoga studio.