Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Does your Farm have a Google Business Profile?
814 Plays3 years ago
In this episode, we sit down with Barn2Door Farm Account Manager, Richard, to learn how Farmers can access more customers and benefit from increased local visibility with a Google My Business profile.
Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool to enable small businesses to become more discoverable in local search results on Google. With a GMB profile, Farms create a listing for their business, which, coupled with a Farm website, helps boost local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and helps improve the discoverability of your Farm through Google Search and Google Maps.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Direct Farm Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the go to resource for farms across the US looking to grow and manage their business. Tune in weekly to hear tips and tactics from our most successful farmers on how to increase sales, access more customers and save time
Role of Farm Account Managers
00:00:17
Speaker
and money. We'll also speak with industry experts, business leaders and partners to share the latest farm business trends selling direct to market.
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's episode. We've got a great conversation today with one of the members of our farm account management or FAM team. Our FAMs are dedicated to helping farmers implement tactics to help drive sales, access more customers, and save time and money. So today we are joined by Richard. Welcome back, Richard. It's great to have you on again.
00:00:48
Speaker
Hey, Roy. Well, I always appreciate being on. So thanks for taking some of my time today. Yeah. I feel like you're one of the few Barnadore employees that's had a few repeated appearances. I love it. To start out, can you, for those that haven't met you, could you introduce yourself and just tell us a little bit about your role at Barnadore?
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Well, as Rory said, my name is Richard. I'm one of the account managers here at Barn to Door. I've been with Barn to Door for well over two years now. Been a ton of fun and we've learned a ton, but yeah, I love it. And as far as I know, I kind of broadly laid out what a FAM is and what a FAM does, but you maybe give us a little bit of a breakdown of your day-to-day and what your job is, how you work with farmers.
00:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So basically the responsibility of a FAM or a farm account manager is twofold.
Setting Up Google Business Profile
00:01:41
Speaker
One, you know, the farms that we have the privilege working with, we want to make sure that they have a solid understanding and handle of their Barn to Door account, how to get the most out of their web store platform.
00:01:50
Speaker
But we do spend a considerable amount of time working with farms in terms of marketing best practices, you know, how to use the tools available to them online, primarily social media and email and other tools like the Google business profile. That way, once they have a solid understanding of how to use these tools, they can take their business really in any direction they want to go. Yeah, awesome. Well, I know that farmers are always raving about the support they get from the fans and especially you, Richard. So I'm glad we got you on here today.
00:02:20
Speaker
So for today's episode, we're going to kind of be diving into those, one of those things that you do work with farms on helping them get set up. And it's a really valuable asset to farmers for their business. And that is the Google business profile. So as a farm account manager, this is something you get to work with a lot and help farmers get them set up and optimized. But taking a few steps back, what is a Google business profile and what exactly does that do?
00:02:44
Speaker
Yeah, well, first and foremost, the Google Business Profile is a free business tool that farms can plug into just using a Google Business account. Now, the nice thing about it as well is having a Google Business Profile not only allows you to create a little profile on the web searches, having some details and there's some information about the business for potential customers.
00:03:08
Speaker
But it actually connects to all Google assets. So if you have a Google business profile, you'll start to show up on things like Google Maps. So it's a must to make sure you're having the biggest visibility out there, especially when it comes to specific geographic areas.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, and that is huge. The fact that you're kind of being able to register once and then kind of get plugged in across a lot of Google's different platforms and just increased visibility is great. You touched on like that Google search aspect. What does that look like once a profile is set up? How are farms more discoverable in that perspective?
00:03:46
Speaker
No, great question. So most of us have taken some time to Google business, especially for just hearing about them or, you know, in probably one of the more popular cases, are they open? We got winter storms rolling in, what are their hours looking like? And when you search a business on the Google search engine, you'll usually see a little pop up or a little window on the right hand side of your search that has
00:04:08
Speaker
business name, hours of operation, location, sometimes the areas they serve, and very importantly, customer reviews. So in short, I mean the Google Business Profile is a great way to have that first impression and first touch on folks that are searching for farm fresh products in their areas or by the farm name.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I feel like even especially having photos in there, it's something that really grabs your attention when you hit that search in Google is really helpful to getting people over your website or so on. Yeah, absolutely. So at what point should a farmer think about setting up that Google business profile? Are there any kind of requirements or anything like that that should be taken into account beforehand? And can anyone set up one of these profiles?
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah, great question. I would say anytime that a farm is looking to advertise in their area, set up a Google business profile. As I mentioned before, it's free and it's a really, really good way to increase visibility in certain geographic areas. I know I use Google maps all the time, even when I'm coming into work, if anything, just to get when I'm supposed to arrive, right?
00:05:17
Speaker
And when I'm looking at my map, you'll see little pinpoints of businesses that have registered on the Google business profile. And so even when I'm just navigating the world around me, I'm getting more aware of the businesses that are located around me.
00:05:30
Speaker
So Google Business Profile, I don't think there's really any reason to wait. It just takes a few moments to verify your business on Google, flesh out some information that your potential customers can learn a little bit more about. And in today's day and age, Google is usually the first place that people go look when they encounter a new brand and they want to learn a little bit more. You Google it, you know, it's become a verb nowadays. So creating a Google Business Profile, never too early to start and it's a great way to increase the visibility.
00:05:59
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's a great point too. Like if you're at farmer's markets or maybe if, even if you're selling swag or things like that, and people might see the name of your farm somewhere out in the wild, a lot of times the first thing they'll do is probably hop on Google and search that. Yep. That's a terrific example as well. You know, it lends itself to building your brand familiarity online. Yeah, definitely. Kind of going back to that, are there any kind of requirements or anything that should be taken into account beforehand?
00:06:27
Speaker
You know, not off the top of my head, it's usually better to make sure that your Google business profile has more information on it than less information. And so, you know, that would be one consideration I would think about. Most of the time when the farms have come to a bar and to door, by the time they reach a farm account manager, they have a web store that's operational. They're hopefully growing their customer list or they have an established customer list. And by the time they reach a farm account, a match, excuse me, manager,
00:06:57
Speaker
they should have all the necessary information to create a really well-built Google Business Profile.
00:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, and I was thinking too, a lot of farms probably if they're going into the step already have this, but having things like a website may be already set up and probably be a good one. And the other one that I think comes up sometimes is the address of the farm. I know some folks might live in a different location than where their farm is at. So that would be another one I think could maybe be important is just figuring out where do you want those customers to be? If you're putting your address out there and you're wanting people to be able to actually see the physical location of your farm, where do you want that to be tied to would be another one I would think.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Now that, from my understanding, that's not necessarily important. You can set up a Google business profile if you don't have a storefront that, or, you know, a pickup on the farm, for example, that folks can swing by. It is helpful, you know, in terms of creating that local visibility, but from my understanding, you don't necessarily have to display a location that folks can come to as a storefront. Good to know. Awesome.
00:07:56
Speaker
So could you maybe
Optimizing Google Business Profile for SEO
00:07:57
Speaker
explain, I know we gave one use case of like seeing some swag out in a while, but could you explain where the customer's path in finding a farm or their products and how Google business profile fits into that path? And maybe what that looks like if they do have one and how that could potentially fall apart if they don't.
00:08:15
Speaker
Well, in my experience with the Google Business Profile, it's really helpful for both new and existing customers. New customers, maybe they're referred to by a friend, you know, hey, just Google this farm name, take a look, you'll see a link to their website, web store, their business hours, you name it.
00:08:30
Speaker
Now that's a great introduction for someone who's first seeing the business. Maybe to your point earlier, they see some swag out there and they're like, that's an interesting farm name. Let me take a look. Now, lots of folks use Google, even if they are well versed with these businesses, just as a quick way to pop into their website or to take a look at their hours and get some more updates.
00:08:53
Speaker
So it's kind of valuable for both new customers and existing customers as just a quick way to get visibility, get contact and have that relationship with your customers online. That's such a great point too because I feel like
00:09:08
Speaker
We all think, you know, ideally if your customers are referring people to you, ideally they're sending those referred people the direct link to your store or the direct link to your website or maybe even your Facebook page. But oftentimes that's not the case. They're probably going to take the easier path and just say, Oh, just Google.
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah. Exactly. One thing, you know, I refer to when I'm chatting with farmers all the time, and this is certainly no dig on customers. It's just human nature when it's online. Online, especially social media and search engines, the way they are nowadays, people have grown accustomed to becoming very lazy online. Whatever's convenient is going to win. And so Google has become ubiquitous with search engines and searching things online.
00:09:53
Speaker
So it's gonna be very common that folks will just say oh search XYZ farm on Google like you'll see their information right there Yeah, definitely and that's a great point that it's it's unfortunate but it's true and sometimes you can use that to your advantage and just use the tools that are funny like a Google business profile the
00:10:11
Speaker
Uh, work around that online laziness. That's right. Hey, just gotta meet the customers where they're at. No shame in that. Yeah. So could you kind of just walk us through the process for setting up that Google business profile?
00:10:27
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. It's pretty straightforward. You know, of course, Google, just like other platforms, want businesses to succeed using their products. And as I mentioned before, since it's free to set up, they've made it a pretty streamlined process for any business to go in there and set one up. So basically, if you have a Google account already, Gmail is a great example of that.
00:10:45
Speaker
You can go in and basically sign into your account and create a Google business profile by going to business.google.com. If you don't have a Google account yet, it's very easy to create one. You can also create that probably at business.google.com.
00:11:00
Speaker
Now you can enter the name of your business. Google may already know the name of your business as well. So you can search by your business name or you can add your new account there. You will eventually have to verify your business, but we'll go into what that process looks like a little bit later, but
00:11:16
Speaker
Once you create your account and type in your business name, you basically just need to fill out the information that they're asking for. So whether your business has locations customers can visit, like we mentioned before, if you have a specific service area, like you're running large delivery routes, you can specify that on your Google account, contact information, website URL, you know, ways that your customers can interact with you and communicate with you online, and then just wrap up the setup process with the remaining questions they ask.
00:11:45
Speaker
Now, verifying your business profile is pretty easy as well. Usually you just have to go in and say, this is my business. Google will prove it after a set period of time. Just to make sure that I'm getting ahead of it and setting some expectations, rarely this has happened with any of the accounts I work with, but occasionally someone who is not affiliated with the business anymore or have never been affiliated with the business can verify your farm as their business.
00:12:11
Speaker
There's lots of very easy ways that you can work with Google in verifying your account with your business to make sure you have control of that profile. And I guess I'm curious there too. Are there any cases where like a business could either accidentally or intentionally already be verified by someone else? Is there any kind of recovery process around that?
00:12:28
Speaker
Yep, absolutely. You'll be able to work with Google. They have lots of different steps and walkthroughs in order to make sure that the business that you own is verified by you. Awesome. So in total, I mean, that sounded pretty straightforward just from you there. If I'm a farmer, I'm thinking, okay, how much time do I got to put into this? What would be your estimate? Would you say of how long this all takes?
00:12:48
Speaker
Oh, gosh. Well, of course, it's at a different tech level and comfort level. If it's their first time working with Google, obviously it might take them a little bit longer. If that's the case, chat with your account manager. And of course, we're happy to walk you through the steps on setting one up. Ideally, it probably shouldn't take longer than five, 10 minutes. Oh, wow. That's awesome. It's pretty quick. The verification timeline can take a day or two, but actually getting it set up and starting to work with it is really, really straightforward.
00:13:18
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Great. I mean, that was, that's like best case scenario, five, 10 minutes. There's really no reason that farms shouldn't have a Google business profile in today's day and age. Yeah. Get them set up. All right.
Examples and Maintenance of Profiles
00:13:30
Speaker
Awesome. So then I also want to talk with you. I know SEO a lot of times is something people are really big on or hear a lot about and that's SEO is stands for search engine optimization. Um, kind of, you know, those Google rankings, how you're appearing when people search for farms.
00:13:45
Speaker
And it does play a big role in how farms and businesses in general just appear in search results. So could you explain more about like what SEO is and why farmers should care about that and then how a Google business profile fits into that or complements that?
00:14:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, SEO is that search engine optimization. In a nutshell, it's essentially a web pages score based on an algorithm that the search engine has in place for ranking website results.
00:14:16
Speaker
SEO gets waved around a lot nowadays because you know everyone wants to be on that coveted first page of Google I mean who in today's day and age goes to page two of their Google search, right? so That being in mind keep it also in mind that SEO is not a be all and all
00:14:36
Speaker
The most important aspect of marketing online is controlling and having a great relationship with your customers. SEO score will usually improve over time with regular sharing of websites and links and, you know, backlinking website traffic, you name it. But the problem with SEO is it's like trying to hit a moving target in the dark.
00:14:55
Speaker
There's no rhyme or reason or really prediction on when search engines will change their algorithms and shuffle the deck on who's going to show up on these Google algorithms, right? If a farm is getting a website with Barn to Door, our design team does a terrific job of actually building in SEO best practices and regular sharing of newsletters and marketing and the maturity of the site, the SEO score is going to improve, no doubt.
00:15:22
Speaker
The Google Business Profile plays into SEO because it's a really great option for those local results and local searches, which, ideally, the farms we're working with are focusing on marketing in their local areas.
00:15:34
Speaker
So basically because it increases visibility across all Google assets, as mentioned, like Google maps, your SEO score will be of course, positively impacted by having the Google business profile, but it's really, really helpful for those local searches and those local results. Okay. And so my understanding there is SEO is hard to stay on top of, and it's always kind of changing the landscape of what will help your farm rank higher.
00:15:59
Speaker
or your website rank higher, but there are some kind of good base standard practices to do and setting up a Google business profile might be one of those. Oh, absolutely. And especially when it comes to creating like a specific location based marketing strategies, which candidly, most of the farms we work with are looking at serving local areas or local communities. And that's really where the business profile can come in handy for you.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And I'm just thinking people in a smaller town or a more remote area, when they search on Google, grass-fed beef near me or something like that, your farm will pop up. They're able to see that nearby to them through Google, which obviously is really great. Yep, certainly helps. Awesome. So with respect to that, is there anything farmers can do to make their Google business profile really stand out in terms of as they're going through that build out process?
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I would say, you know, of course having basic information, more information can provide the better. This kind of gives peace of mind to customers that are taking a look around and people like to feel confident that they can show up to a pickup location appropriately or they have a better idea of where the farm is going if it's an on-farm pickup. Of all these things, photos are a great way to create engagement. I would always encourage people to have photos in their Google business profile.
00:17:13
Speaker
Just like marketing on social media, customers, human beings in general, like to see things. And so having some photos of final products or images of the farm, you know, whatever you're comfortable having onto the Google business profile can help with conversion long-term.
00:17:28
Speaker
Additionally, and this is something that can be a little uncomfortable for farms at first,
Encouragement and Resources
00:17:35
Speaker
solicit reviews from your customers. You know, we do it as a tech company for those who have subscribed to our service. Everyone online, if they spend any time there, is accustomed to businesses asking, hey, how are we doing? Rate us, you know, one to five stars. How can we do better? You know, you name it. So people are soliciting reviews all the time and farmer's customers are used to that as well.
00:17:55
Speaker
If they've got a relationship with you and they're buying from you as a customer, I would say far and away customer business provide favorable reviews. And so ask your customers, Hey, leave us a review on Google. Land a lot more credibility to folks who are just encountering your brand for the first time. So I would say photos, reviews, those are going to be two really big tools to have in your tool belt when building out that Google business profile.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think that makes total sense. You know, like other people going and rating your business, approving of it, ranking it high. It's a great way for Google to know, okay, this is a place we should be sending people. Yeah. Well, and a good analogy is like going to a restaurant for the first time. You know, here you're going to have the sit down experience. You're unsure of the business. You've maybe heard good things. You take a look at it online. It has great reviews. You're going to be excited to go try it. It's going to be excited to go in and have that experience. If it doesn't.
00:18:52
Speaker
you might second-guess yourself. In those cases as well, a savvy buyer and a savvy customer is going to take a look at the reviews and see what was the negative response, what was the positive response, and then form their own decision of whether they're going to shop there. But reviews can go a long way of just building a lot of confidence in your customers when taking a look at your products and your farm.
00:19:13
Speaker
Yeah, and it definitely seems like that's one that can have a snowball effect. You start getting more and more of those, and that is drawing, having more reviews is drawing more people to you, especially those good reviews, like you were saying. Exactly, yep, yep, that's a really, really good point.
00:19:28
Speaker
Are there any kind of drawbacks to setting up a Google business profile? Obviously I know sometimes people are always concerned with how much information they might be putting out in the world wide web. Are there any drawbacks and maybe what is your advice to farmers who are a little concerned about that and not wanting to necessarily throw all their information into this page?
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, no, great question. I completely understand having the desire to have some anonymity online to certain degrees. Of course, I would let people know if you are setting up your Google business profile and you want to have a phone number on there, maybe don't put your cell phone number on because the likelihood of folks reaching out, giving a phone calls can increase quite a bit, especially if the visibility and the reviews start snowballing, as you said earlier.
00:20:11
Speaker
The point of being online and having these assets is in part to help you save time. And when you're getting phone calls all the time, kind of defeats the purpose there. Another good example, I'd say if you happen to live on the farm and you wanted to have your address there, that is up to your discretion as well. I know many of the accounts I work with, they like having the privacy of their home and they don't like folks just rolling down the driveway willy-nilly.
00:20:36
Speaker
So have definitely just some discretion when setting up the information on your business profile, just like in terms of social media, you're going to have a lot of eyes on this type of information. And so I would say the only drawback is too much visibility, which is kind of a good problem to have, but have some discretion when you're setting up your account.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, no, definitely good things to be wary of. And having, I think, like you mentioned earlier, but just having the awareness around if you're just doing deliveries and maybe some local pickups in town, then your address isn't something that's relevant to customers anyways. It would really only be relevant to folks that are either doing pickups at their farm or maybe hosting events or things like that. So it is nice that Google kind of gives you that flexibility to leave some of those details out.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah. Awesome. Well, are there any examples of a farm Google business profile that you think really stand out? Maybe one that listeners could go and look up to both see as an example, but maybe also for some inspiration.
00:21:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Um, gosh, I mean, one of the farms I work with out of Montana, Mannix family ranch, they do a terrific job. If folks are looking into to search that one up here, I could spell it. It's kind of a unique spelling of the name, but M a N N I X family ranch. Awesome. Great, great farm. Love working with these folks, but they have a really well fleshed out established business profile that you could take a look on Google. If you're looking for some inspiration there.
00:22:01
Speaker
Now, some other great farms that we're working with as well, terra firma farms, also really, really well built out Google business profile. They're a dairy. And so, you know, if you are operating in the same type of industry, they're definitely worth taking a look at. All of these would be great inspirations for anyone interested in setting one up.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. So, uh, Google them. Yeah, there you go. That's all it takes. And you can just look them up and those profiles, you should see those manifest kind of on the right hand side of your search engine and you can kind of poke around and see what that could look like for your farm if you don't have one set up yet. So I'm assuming once a farmer sets this up, is there any kind of maintenance or nourishment, I guess, that needs to go into setting up a profile? What can farmers be doing or keeping track of to maintain it and continue to build its effectiveness?
00:22:49
Speaker
You know, just like any other online asset, it's important to make sure that these things are relevant, right? Lots of folks will just pop onto Google to take a look at your business profile to check hours of operation, for example. So if you haven't taken the time to maybe remove some hours or change some fulfillment days in regards to the holidays, for example, you wouldn't want to potentially mislead or confuse customers that way.
00:23:15
Speaker
So just like having any other type of hygiene on social accounts or contact information on emails that you're sending out, you know, regular maintenance, making sure things are up to date for your customers there. But once it is set up, in my experience anyway, it's usually pretty good. It's not something you have to go into all the time to update and refresh, just like any socials and things like that.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah, awesome. Well, great. And that's good to hear that we talked about five to 10 minutes to get it set up a little bit more to verify, but it's nice. That is a big lift to kind of maintain and keep as something that's helping your farm online moving forward.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a must. Again, if you're working with a farm account manager and you have any trouble getting these set up, definitely harass us. That's what we're here for. That's what we love. So come on down. So well, Richard, thanks so much for joining us here and talking us through this. I think, yeah, like you said, these are great assets and I'm sometimes surprised at how few folks have them. And so definitely if you're listening and you don't have a business profile set up, at least look into it. Maybe take those five to 10 minutes to get it set up and then verified and
00:24:21
Speaker
you'll be up and running. So Richard, thanks so much for breaking it down for us and making it sound a little simpler. Yeah. Happy to help. Rory, if you ever need me again, you know where to find me. Exactly. Yeah. We love having you on, Richard. It's always a pleasure, but thanks for your time, Rory. I want to extend my thanks to Richard for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barnadore, we're humbled to support thousands of farms across the country who implement sustainable agricultural practices and support their vocal communities.
00:24:48
Speaker
We're honored to get the opportunity to learn from our account managers what tactics the most successful farmers are using to grow and manage their farm businesses. If you would like to connect with a range of farm advisors, attend Barnadore Connect. You can register for those weekly sessions at barnadore.com slash connect. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next time.
00:25:10
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in. For more free farm resources, tips, and tactics that are most successful farms used to grow and manage their business, visit barnadore.com slash resources. Also don't forget to subscribe to the Direct Farm podcast to automatically download our weekly episodes. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.