Google My Business: What Is a GMB Listing?

What is a GMB listing?

Let’s start with the basics, GMB stands for Google My Business.

A GMB is a business listing on Google.

A GMB listing allows local customers to find information about your business.

As you can see from the screenshot below when we search for “Level Finish Richmond VA” Google returns the GMB listing for a business we own (Level Finish).

The GMB listing contains quite a bit of information such as the:

• Business name
• Reviews
• Address
• Operational hours
• Phone number

If you look closely, right under our business name, you’ll see there’s also a button that says “website”. Which once clicked, would redirect the user to our website.

It’s good to note that this isn’t always how our GMB listing will look to users, what we just saw was how a GMB listing looks when customers search for a specific company.

GMB listings on different Devices

Let’s explore how GMB listings look when carrying out a search for a local keyword.

As you can see from the screenshots below, I carried out a search for the same keyword on both a desktop and mobile device.

Both devices return GMB listings within the map pack, however, the buttons and options we see are a little different.

On desktop, to the right of the business name we have 2 options which are “Website” and “directions” (listings that are missing the website option do not have any website linked to their listing).

The same search on a mobile device looks a little different. You’ll notice that there are no buttons to get directions to anyone’s business or to visit any of their websites.

These buttons have been replaced with a call button, which if pressed will trigger the call function on your mobile device.

As you can imagine, this helps a tremendously when it comes to generating inbound calls for your business.

There are typically only three spots in the map pack listing so to get maximum exposure for your business, you’ll want to ensure you’re in it.

Where else do GMB listings appear?

GMB listings also appear in Google maps too.

Hopefully it’s pretty obvious now just how important GMB listings are for local businesses.

Any local business that does not have a listing is missing out on a massive opportunity to generate additional customers for their business.