Google My Business is Now Google Business Profile — Here’s How to Use It!

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if you want your business to be found
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locally you’ll no longer be using google
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my business to do it that’s right google
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just replaced google my business with
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google business profile so
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what’s that mean for your existing
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google my business listing or if you’re
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a new business how do you get set up
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with a brand new google business profile
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i’m going to cover it all right here in
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this video i’ll explain the move from
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google my business to google business
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profile what’s different now and how to
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use it to both list your new business
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and manage an existing listing even if
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you made it using that super outdated
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google my business because here’s the
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thing every small business especially
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local businesses
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still needs to list themselves on google
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so that you can show up right here in
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the map listings and in those organic
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listings underneath it too
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and we used to do this through google my
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business but
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since they like to shake things up every
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few years just as we’re getting the hang
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of it
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we now not only get a name change but a
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minor tweak to how we use it too so in
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short google my business is being broken
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up into two distinct parts so bigger
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businesses with multiple locations are
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pretty much going to continue to use the
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current google my business experience
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except it’s now going to be renamed
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business profile manager pretty much
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going to be the same experience on a
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dedicated website like we’re used to uh
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using now with google my business but
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then smaller businesses with just one
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location are being transitioned over to
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google business profile
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which is still going to remain largely
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the same but how you claim your listing
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and then edit your listing is going to
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be slightly different and don’t worry if
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you have a listing you already set up
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through google my business you don’t
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need to redo it in the new system
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everything is going to be you know
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carried over but this is all meant to be
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a simplification of the whole process so
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if you’re ready let’s just jump into the
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computer so i can show you how to do it
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okay so here we are just at google.com
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and the way you’re going to want to
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claim your listing is you’re simply
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going to type in the business address so
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i’m going to go ahead and pop mine in
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here
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and any instance where it pops up okay
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so i’m just going to search on that
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address and then you’re going to go up
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to maps then over here on this left
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sidebar you’re just going to go down to
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add your business and here’s where you
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can start building out your business
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profile starting with your business name
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so for the the purposes here i’m going
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to do a fictitious photo booth rental
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business so i might call it
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black box photo booth rental now i do
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want to point out here something so this
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is kind of a pro tip basically having
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the keywords in your business name will
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help you rank however i want to be very
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clear about this google doesn’t want you
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including keywords in your business name
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if that’s not actually part of your
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business name so my point here is if
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you’re at a point in your business where
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you’re still coming up with the name
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rather than calling this business
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something like black box studios or
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black box
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photography you might want to be very
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specific in exactly what you offer
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because that way it does give you a big
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boost when people would be typing in
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photo booth rental so definitely worth
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doing that or possibly even thinking of
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maybe doing a legal name change of your
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business if you’re kind of in those
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beginning stages and you can do that so
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all right so moving on to business
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category here you’re going to start kind
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of typing in something and they’re going
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to give you a bunch of options so i’m
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just going to start typing in photo
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booth so i’m actually not going to use
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photo booth and here’s why this is a
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really specific example but it does get
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you thinking about you know trying to
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think about your business in the right
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way so photo booth would refer to just a
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stand-alone photo booth that’s out
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somewhere that that’s your business
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that’s not what we have here though if
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it’s a photo booth rental company it’s
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really going to be more of a photography
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service
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so i’m going to choose photography
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service but a lot of times there’s going
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to be multiple options that you could
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choose so really the name of the game
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here is to choose the one that you think
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is the most appropriate for your
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business if you’ve got multiple options
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also
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maybe the thing that people would be
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searching for the most so in our case i
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think photography service definitely
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fits the bill more than these others so
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i’m going to choose that and then click
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on next now here you’ve got a choice or
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i mean you kind of have a choice but
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it’s kind of going to be dictated by
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your circumstances so what they’re
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asking here is
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is this a business address that people
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would show up to like a store or an
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office so i think a lot of you watching
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this are probably you probably more work
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from home in which case you really
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wouldn’t want your address to show up
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here so i’m going to choose no for the
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purposes of this but if you’re a
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storefront if you’re a restaurant if
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you’re the kind of office where you
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wouldn’t mind foot traffic just popping
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in then you would do yes let me click on
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next so here’s where you can specify
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where you actually serve customers if
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you travel out or if you just work from
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home and it’s all remote but i do want
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to be very clear about this part so a
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lot of people think that typing in as
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many areas as possible is going to help
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them rank in all those areas that is not
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the case unfortunately
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one of the biggest ranking factors of
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showing up in the maps or not is just
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how close the person is to your actual
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address so i could type in every zip
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code in america here or just choose i
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think you can actually just choose um
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the whole country right yeah so you can
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choose a whole country you could choose
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worldwide if you wanted to or you can
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choose a state a city zip codes you name
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it i’m just going to type in
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chicago here or actually chicago land
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where this would show to people that i
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could travel out to any of the suburbs
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in the chicagoland area versus you know
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being rigid i only serve chicago so i’m
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going to choose chicagoland here and
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that’s basically going to put a map
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as you see right here in this little
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illustration when people are searching
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for your business it’ll basically have a
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map drawn of the areas that you serve so
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they know if you’ll go to them or not
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and you could choose more cities here
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like let’s say we did you know we would
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travel out to the milwaukee area or um
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you know anywhere in ohio or something
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we could type in more of those here and
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then when once we’re happy with our
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selections we just choose next now here
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you gotta put in your phone number
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and your web address so i’m just gonna
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type in
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that and then click on next okay so here
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is now when we have to actually take the
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step of verifying our listing and the
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way we do that is they send out a
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postcard to your address because
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otherwise think about it if you could
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just say your address was anywhere and
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show up anywhere so this is really how
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they verify that you are who you say you
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are but just so you know if you’ve if
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you’ve said that you didn’t want your
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address to be seen they are not going to
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publish this address this is literally
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just for them to send that postcard they
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have the info they don’t pass it on to
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anybody else
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okay and once you’ve got your address in
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here just click on next and sometimes
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they give you options here like i’ve
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heard of being able to be verified by a
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phone number so like a text sometimes
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but that’s pretty rare usually it is the
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postcard so i’m just going to type in my
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contact name here so it’ll send to the
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right person at the right address and
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just make sure your address looks good
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and everything is accurate and then
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click on mail and then that’s going to
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trigger them actually mailing that
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postcard out to you and here it says
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you’re going to get your postcard with
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the verification code on it in about
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five days you’re just going to want to
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look out for it and then click on
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continue cool so even without verifying
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there’s still quite a bit of work we can
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do here to kind of get our listing up
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and running before we verify it so the
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first thing we want to do here is choose
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all the different services that we
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provide and it’s going to come
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pre-populated with some based on the the
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business type that you said so i’m going
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to probably get rid of headshots and
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portraits since this is a photo booth
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rental i’m picturing it’s more for
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events and weddings that kind of thing
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so i’ll do events and parties and let’s
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see show more yeah wedding and
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engagement i’ll do that and then custom
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service if you don’t if you can’t find
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what you want you can definitely create
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your own here so i’m going to type in
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photo booth rental and then next all
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right so here’s where we add our
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business hours you know let’s say you
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were monday through friday i’m just
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choose all these and then you just pop
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in your you know let’s say 9 a.m
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to 5 p.m
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and then you just do that for all these
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and then once you have it the way you
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want it just click on next and here it
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gives you the option to actually add
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messaging so that people can find you in
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google maps and then message you right
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from there for free so i think that’s
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something that anybody should opt in for
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so i’m going to click on next and i
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thought it was going to bring us to
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something to set that up but i guess
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that comes later i think you have to
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actually be verified before that can
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actually work so now they’re just taking
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us to the next step which is to add the
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business description so here’s where you
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want to really
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make good use of this space and use
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persuasive language that talks about
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your benefits not just all the logistics
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and the the facts so i might type in
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something like
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black box provides photo booth rentals
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for weddings corporate events bart
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mitzvahs if it’s a celebration we’ll
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bring the fun
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we come with all the backdrops props and
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accessories to set any tone from high
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end sophisticated to wild and crazy so
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the reason i’m reading that is just to
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kind of show you the kind of
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stuff that you should be including right
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we’ve got the keyword here photo booth
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rentals which is a little bit important
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you definitely want that in there just
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so people know that you are the company
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that they’re looking for keywords don’t
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really play a huge role here in being
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found but why not use them in the space
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it couldn’t hurt right we talk about the
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different use cases you know weddings
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corporate events and then we bring up a
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benefit here how we bring the fun and we
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bring the backdrops we basically come
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prepared you’re making the case for why
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someone would want to work with you
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rather than you know a lot of people
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would just say the the cities they serve
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and just we do weddings we do corporate
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events
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very dry you want to be a little more
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persuasive than that so once you get it
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the way you want it we’re just going to
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click on next and now we can add in
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photos and i highly recommend not
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skipping this step so i’m just going to
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click on add photos and i’ve got a bunch
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here i’m just going to drag them all
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over onto the stage so you just have all
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your you know photos in jpeg format and
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you can just drag them one by one or
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batch do them whatever works for you so
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i’ve got a logo here we’ll set that
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later and then we’ve got all these other
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photos for now i’m just going to click
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on next and this is all about
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advertising on google i’m going to skip
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this this is kind of a whole other video
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so i’m just going to click skip for now
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your business profile is almost ready
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continue cool so it’s telling us now
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that we’re still pending verification we
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don’t have that yet but let’s go ahead
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and finish this profile out as much as
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we can before we get that postcard so
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the first place i want to take you to is
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over here on the sidebar we’re going to
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go to info and see how right here we
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have photography service we’ve basically
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selected our primary category here
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however i’m bringing the pro tips in
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this video and you don’t want to just
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choose one category you also want some
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secondary categories so i’m going to
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click on the little pencil icon next to
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it to edit that and if you wanted to
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change your primary category you would
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do that here but we’re just going to
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click on add another category i’m just
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going to type in photo and see what else
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pops up so
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uh photo oh i’m going to do photo booth
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as a secondary category
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and then photographer add another
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category now maybe something about
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weddings weddings wedding photographer
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okay there we go we’re not quite a
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wedding photographer but it fits in the
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category i’ll do another wedding thing
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because i saw wedding service
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i think that fits and then maybe event
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okay i’m actually not seeing anything
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for that so just x out of there but i’m
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pretty happy with all these selections
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as secondary categories so let’s click
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on apply
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uh see for photo booth it’s giving us
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trouble okay yeah this is what i was
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talking about before so sometimes
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something will not be available to you
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because for this they’re saying you need
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to have a location um that appears on
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the map so let’s just get rid of photo
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booth click on apply now we’re still
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under info um i want to direct your
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attention to a few more places so um
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attributes is one so i’m going to click
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on that so basically this is going to
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depend on your business type and they
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give you these different um signifiers
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that you can use if they apply to you
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which will appear sometimes in the
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google map listings so you know if we
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identified as black owned or
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veteran-owned or woman-owned we might
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want to identify that here and lgbtq
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friendly yeah if it’s a wedding business
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i would definitely check that and then
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click on apply and then opening date so
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the reason you want that is because a
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lot of times people don’t check this at
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all and then it just says you know one
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year in business and you don’t want that
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necessarily and if you’re putting this
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up for the first time you may be new but
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as time goes on this way it’ll it’ll
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allow you to be shown as you know five
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years in business seven years in
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business which just looks better and
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better as time goes on so i’m just gonna
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do 2021 let’s do november that’s when
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i’m making this let’s just say november
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15th all right and if we hadn’t already
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added photos we might we would do that
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over here you can also do it over here
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on the left sidebar okay so moving on
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from info let’s go down to services next
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you really want to make sure that all of
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your services are listed and filled out
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completely this is really going to help
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you be found when people are searching
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for specific services that you may offer
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so it’s giving you all these uh options
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for under each of the main categories we
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picked so this is our main category and
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these are our secondary categories and
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under each of them has all these
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different services so you just want to
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click on each one
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you want to do a brief description about
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it they give you 300 characters you
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don’t have to use all of that but just
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make sure you’ve described the service
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completely and then you want to do a
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price i highly recommend i at least
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doing a you know range you know from i
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don’t know 500 dollars and you know
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that’s basically like a starting price
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at that point that’s really going to
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help people decide if you’re for them or
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not and once you’re done click save and
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you’re just going to want to do this for
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all the rest of these as well you want
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to make sure your profile is as filled
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out as completely as possible that’s
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really going to help you in ranking okay
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so now we’re going to go over to photos
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so we already uploaded a bunch of them
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but we want to now specify
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a few for sure so we want to specify our
14:53
logo and our cover photo that’s going to
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show up as the main
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photo when people do a search for your
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business so let’s go ahead and choose
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photo here and if we didn’t already have
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our logo file we would drag the file
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right here but we already have it under
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albums and i’ve got it right here and
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then we just want to make sure we’ve got
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the whole thing selected i highly
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recommend if you’re doing a logo it’d be
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it fit very nicely in a square because
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that’s actually how they display it so
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i’m going to click on set logo and then
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cover i’m going to choose the cover
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photo as well and here it’s not giving
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us the option of in the album so i’m
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just going to go ahead and drag it back
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over again i’ll just drag that over it’s
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not the best picture in the world but
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ideally it’s a stock photo but ideally
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you’d have one that really represent
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represent your business the best as you
15:37
possibly can and the next thing we want
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to do now this is really important and
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this is something that not most people
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on youtube talk about when they go over
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this but you want to go up to posts i’m
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going to click on create your first post
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what i highly recommend you do is create
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an evergreen offer that you can
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basically advertise so when people type
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in your business name when that uh that
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side panel comes up on the right side of
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the screen with all of your business
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information it’s gonna have an offer for
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them so i want you to think about what
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is the thing you could either give away
16:09
for free to bring people in for the
16:11
first time or at least a really good
16:13
discount that’s going to incentivize
16:15
people to want to work with you for the
16:16
first time and these used to be really
16:18
clunky because offers all these posts
16:20
used to last for seven days so you’d
16:23
have to keep redoing it but the cool
16:25
thing i think that is still the case
16:26
with you know what’s new and events or
16:29
at least with what’s new rather but with
16:30
offers you can specify how long it’s
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good for so for instance if i wanted to
16:35
drag this out until
16:37
you know november 24th 2025
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i could do that so you just want to give
16:42
your offer a title like
16:46
you know buy one get one by two hours
16:48
get two free and then under more details
16:50
here’s where you’d want to really talk
16:52
about the specifics of the offer
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you know just make sure it’s very
17:06
specific and then if you have any terms
17:08
and conditions like any limitations on
17:11
this or whatever you put that in here if
17:12
you have a coupon code you can put that
17:14
in or if you just have a link to a
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landing page which is what i might
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recommend you do so on your website
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you’d create a specific page all about
17:22
that offer where they can read all about
17:24
it they can click through to schedule it
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how you handle it’s up to you but we
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have one more step and that is to add a
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photo so i’m going to click there i’m
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just going to go to our albums and
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choose one that i’ve already got right
17:34
here upload photos cool so what you’ve
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got here now is just a really good
17:39
business driver for anyone coming to
17:42
visit you for for the first time so i’m
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going to click on publish okay so
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i misspoke earlier i cannot set this out
17:49
for more than a year it has to be a year
17:51
away so i’m just going to say november
17:52
1st 2022 so basically you have to do
17:56
this
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year by year so now i’ll click on
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publish all right so that’s done the
18:01
only thing left to do now is wait five
18:03
days for our postcard so we can finish
18:05
this up
18:06
it’s been one week
18:10
okay so i’ve got my postcard in the mail
18:12
and it’s told me i need to go to
18:13
google.com
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verify my business which is where we’re
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at right now and i will also say if a
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week has gone by and you still haven’t
18:23
gotten your postcard you may need to
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also come back to this page again it’s
18:27
google.com verify my business and then
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in that case you just click on mail
18:32
again but in our case we have it so i’m
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just going to type in this five digit
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code we have here
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and then click on verify
18:40
cool so now it says it was accepted it
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may take a few minutes to verify
18:45
completely i’m just going to click on
18:46
next and i’m just going to click on skip
18:48
here skip on advertising and now we can
18:51
go back to our profile by clicking on
18:53
continue to finish up any edits that we
18:55
weren’t able to do before and again
18:58
everything lives over here on the left
18:59
so if you want to add more photos you
19:01
just click on photos and you can add
19:03
those here
19:04
services same thing everything is pretty
19:06
much the same as it was before now we
19:08
just have more things that we’re able to
19:10
do because we are in fact verified so
19:13
but what if you’re watching this video
19:14
because you already had a google my
19:16
business listing but you just need to
19:18
know the new way to go in and edit your
19:21
details the way you do that it’s really
19:23
easy you’re just gonna do it from
19:26
a simple google search so you can either
19:28
type in the name of your business
19:30
exactly as it appears
19:31
as exactly as you typed it in to begin
19:33
with in my case that would be
19:37
black box photo booth rental or you can
19:39
just type in
19:41
my business
19:42
and then as long as you’re signed in to
19:44
the same uh google account that you set
19:46
it up with this little box should appear
19:48
right here and then i can click on view
19:51
profile and then we’ve got all these
19:52
options here so we can create an ad
19:54
we can basically add
19:56
questions and answers right here or we
19:58
can add an update or
20:00
an offer remember how
20:02
we have this offer down here that’s how
20:04
that shows up right down here you can
20:06
add another post by clicking right here
20:08
so there’s many ways of doing all this
20:09
let’s just pop through these so we got
20:11
see call history to get your first
20:13
review so that’s a an interesting one
20:15
turn on messaging that way people can
20:17
actually message you from your listing
20:19
directly or if you want to control
20:21
everything else you’re just going to
20:22
click on edit profile from here we can
20:24
edit our business information including
20:26
contact location hours and more
20:30
and we can add all of these other things
20:32
in here just by googling my business now
20:35
if you’re really serious about
20:37
dominating the search results in your
20:38
category
20:39
this is going to be the perfect pairing
20:42
with your new google business profile
20:43
because there’s stuff you need to do on
20:45
your website too
20:47
if you want to be found in local
20:49
searches so just click right here to see
20:51
my proven blueprint for the perfect
20:54
local seo page so when you get this
20:56
right and you get your google business
20:58
profile all set up
21:00
this is how you can wind up in that
21:01
google map three pack which is exactly
21:04
where you want to be right so click
21:06
right here and i’ll show you everything
21:08
you need

Optimized Webmedia Marketing is the best SEO Vancouver company and the best Vancouver SEO company. We offer top-notch search engine optimization (SEO) solutions to companies of all sizes. To learn how we can help optimize your website to attract more visitors, book a free consultation.