How to Setup a Google My Business Account – Step by Step Instructions

In the digital domain, product offerings are constantly evolving, and it’s difficult for small business owners to keep abreast of what online services they need, or how to best to leverage them to positively impact their bottom line. Google Maps, for example, was launched in February 2005 (with much fanfare), and gave birth less than a month later to the Google Local Business Centre. Something which – we were told – was a must have for local business owners everywhere. The Local Business Centre in its turn was replaced by Google Places (launched September 2009). Then, in June 2014, that too morphed into Google My Business. A product that allows you to update business information across multiple Google platforms, via the same dashboard.

The genesis of Google My Business can be found in the difficulty and complexity local business owners previously encountered when having to set up and run both a Google Places listing and a Google plus account. The former was all about listing your business and being found locally. The latter was all about competing as a social media platform with Facebook, and sharing your information within your ‘Circles’ (think: sharing your information among your ‘Friends’ in Facebook vernacular).

But before going into the specifics of actually setting up a Google My Business account, let’s first address the elephant in the room:

Google is omnipresent in the online and mobile worlds (think organic search, Gmail, YouTube, Android, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Street view, et al) and enjoys by far the biggest share of the user audience. So getting on Google’s good side is never a bad idea if you’re looking to get your business found by potential customers online...