Does Your Remodeling Company Own its Google My Business & Google Ads Accounts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teFVcyGBxEQ&feature=youtu.be

Welcome back to the third entry in our “Who Owns It?” series. So far we’ve covered domains, web hosting, and social media. This time we’re focusing on Big G’s own internet-based services, Google My Business (GMB) and Google Ads, and why owning them is crucial for home improvement business owners. 

Let’s get started. 

Why Google My Business is important for Contractors

Your GMB profile is the first thing that will pop up on the side of the screen when someone searches your contractor business name. It’s your personal real estate on the search engine results page. You control what goes on it and (for the most part) what people can see about your business. Many times, this is the only thing people will interact with when searching for your business. Pretty neat isn’t it? 

Here’s an example of what the search would look like for someone trying to google our business: 

It’s safe to say your Google My Business is a critical component of your brand. In fact, according to a Moz study on local search ranking factors, Google My Business is the single most important local ranking factor. By taking charge of your GMB account, you can stand out amongst your competitors. Now wouldn’t that be great?

How important are Google Ads for Home Improvement Companies?

While your GMB profile helps improve local SEO, Google Ads, on the other hand, gives you the opportunity to have your business advertised on Google. Typically, when someone searches for a service or product, Google Ads will be the first few results shown. 

Here’s an example of what Google PPC ads would look like for someone searching for remodeling contractors in Atlanta:

There are some people who have the misconception that ads don’t work, or that people don’t click them. We’re here to tell you that they’re… wrong, very wrong. 

Google Ads allows you to increase your company’s awareness, reach more customers, and most importantly, get more leads! The best part? Unlike SEO, which is a long term investment, Google Ads can get you immediate results.

Put simply, Google Ads are so incredibly important for contractors and home improvement companies. Just like your Google My Business profile, you want to make sure you take charge of your Google Ads account so that YOU are satisfied. 

Owning your GMB

Of course, you own your business but the real question is “do you own your Google My Business?”. You may be scratching your head right now but let’s further discuss this. If you search for your home improvement business and the Google My Business Knowledge Panel appears on the right-hand side of your screen (like in the screenshot above), you’re all good right?

Well, not exactly. 

Are you able to log in through Business.Google.com? If not, do you know the email associated with it? Ask yourself these questions in order to answer the big question, which is “do I own my GMB?”. 

By owning your Google My Business, you can add locations, manage your users, update contact information, etc. which means no matter what, YOU have control of it. That’s huge because the idea of giving someone total control of your GMB is essentially giving them a portion of your business with you having zero control of it. That should make you feel really uncomfortable because it goes back to the idea that this is YOUR business, so why does anyone outside of the business (or a marketing partner) have control of something involving it.

Of course, we understand you’re busy doing other things involving your business like managing projects, scheduling appointments, and following up with leads. The last thing you need to worry about is having to also juggle your social media and Google My Business accounts. That’s why working with an agency like ours will only benefit you. There’s a team running your Google My Business account(s) and other portions of your online brand so you can get back to running your remodeling business

With that being said, we make sure you have the login information, so you also have control of the accounts. What we do is we make sure that we aren’t the only ones with access to the accounts. We feel as though it isn’t fair to have full control of your Google My Business Accounts. We want you to know what’s going on whenever you wish to know. 

If you are working with an agency and they have set up your Google My Business but you don’t have access to it, you need to get in contact with them ASAP. Tell them to add you as an administrative user so you can know what is going on. 

Owning your Google Ads

Very similar to what we discussed about taking control of your Google My Business, you need to make sure you know what’s going on with your Google Ads account, especially if you have an agency handling it for you. We’ve had a couple of situations where we started working with a new client who’s previous agency locked them out of “their” PPC accounts. What did this mean for the owner of the company? Unfortunately, it meant all the ads they paid for and data they collected through online advertising was lost forever. 

In other words, it’s going to take longer (and cost more) to start getting PPC leads again. What seemed like money well spent went down the drain because they didn’t take ownership of the account. Yikes.

We highly encourage you to take the initiative and ask yourself these questions:

• Do I have the login information?

• If not, do I know who does? Can I receive it?
• If I am working with an agency, do they have full ownership of the account?

If the answer to the last question is yes, then you need to get in contact with the agency ASAP. If they refuse to give you access, challenge them while the relationship is still good. Tell them this is just for precautionary measures and you are just trying to take ownership of your brand online. 

Yes, we are passionate about this because we put ourselves in your shoes and would never want to be in a situation where we lose ownership of our brand online. It’s your business, so take control of it. We hope you take this information and understand the pitfalls that you could run into when you outsource these critical digital pieces and components of your brand. 

Who owns your business? The answer is…… YOU!