Mastering Google My Business for Your Dog Grooming Salon

Amp up your Google presence

Google My Business is a priceless tool that empowers local business owners to curate, manage, and enhance their web presence. This essential tool can be used to attract new customers to your grooming salon through search and maps, fostering growth and visibility in your local community.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to craft and enhance your dog grooming salon's business profile via Google My Business.

1. Create or claim your Google Business Profile

To start, we’re going to create or claim your Google Business Profile through Google My Business. To do that, click here, click “Manage now,” and sign in to your Google account.

If you have already claimed your Google Business Profile, you'll encounter a management dashboard.

If not, you'll find an option to discover and oversee your listing. Enter your grooming salon's name in the search box. If it emerges in the dropdown menu, select the business name and proceed to claim the profile. If not, opt to create a new business with that name.

2. Designate your business category

Categories serve as descriptors for your business nature, distinct from its offerings or products. The ideal course is to be as precise as possible in picking your primary category. If you run a mobile grooming salon, it would be advantageous to list your category as “Mobile Pet Spa” rather than “Pet Grooming Salon”.

Supplementary categories are worth adding only if they highlight offerings beyond your principal category. If your core classification is 'dog groomer,' feel free to add categories such as 'dog bathing' or 'dog nail clipping if you offer those services too.

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3. Determine your business type

Google classifies businesses into three archetypes:

• Storefront Businesses: Serve customers exclusively at the business address (e.g., pet boutiques, dog grooming salons).
• Service-Area Businesses: Cater to clients off-site or via delivery, operating without a store address (e.g., mobile pet groomers).
• Hybrid Businesses: Facilitate both on-site and off-site services (e.g., grooming salons that also offer mobile grooming).

For storefront groomers (Storefront Businesses), set the address and leave the service area field blank. Do this under the Info tab.

For mobile groomers (Service-Area Businesses), click the option to set your service area. You can list up to twenty of these, but set your service boundary cautiously—Google's guideline suggests restricting it within a 2-hour driving radius. Resist the temptation to make your service area larger than you would actually drive, as Google Business Profiles are tailored for local searches. Finally, clear your address from the listing.

If you’re a hybrid business, run through the same steps as service-area businesses, but don’t clear your address. Customers wanting to visit your storefront salon still need this.

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4. Display business hours

It’s amazing how many people forget to do this! Arguably one of the easiest and most value add things you can do is to set your operational hours.

To input your hours, navigate to Dashboard > Info > Add hours.

Mark the open days and specify opening and closing times. If your hours entail a mid-day closure for lunch, a simple click of the "add hours" button can accommodate this. Replicate this process as much as needed.

And don’t forget to set your holiday hours. Nobody wants to spend Christmas Eve knocking on your door wondering why you’re not open after your Google page said you were. It’s a guaranteed way to get a negative review!

To do this, just go to Dashboard > Info > Add special hours.

Even if holiday hours are the same as your regular business hours, go through the process to confirm them. If you don’t customers may be confused as to whether or not you’re actually open!

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5. Provide contact information

Only 60% of service businesses answer the phone on first call (Expertise.com). Providing your contact information is the easiest way to stand out and close customers on Google! You are missing out on free value if you choose not to provide a phone number.

You can locate the contact information on the “Info” tab. I don’t advise leaving these fields blank. If you don’t have a website or don’t want to be contacted through phone, at least add your facebook page.

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6. Add images

According to Google, businesses with photos receive a total of 42% more direction requests and 35% more clicks to their website.

While customers can add images, curating your own business images can ensure the right presentation.

Here's a photographic blueprint to get started with images:

1. Add Your Logo: Choose a crisp, clear rendition.
2. Create a Cover Photo: I typically go for a picture of the team here.
3. Add at least 3 exterior photos: Capture your premises from multiple angles on the outside.
4. Add at least 3 interior photos: Customers want to ensure the salon is clean so choose your photos wisely!
5. Add at least 3 pictures of groomed dogs: Highlight your range of grooming services and show customers what kind of quality they can expect from your business.
6. Add at least 3 team photos: I like to show some of my groomer’s in action here so our customer can see how their dog would be handled.

As per a study by BrightLocal, businesses featuring over 100 images garner 520% more calls, 2,717% more direction requests, and 1,065% more website clicks than the average. 100 images can seem intimidating - but I’d recommend you just start small. Then make it a habit to add photos over time.

Oh and make sure to name each image - for example, poodlegroom.jpg and not IMG_23422.

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7. Add services & offerings

Google will most likely give you the option to add products and services to your business. I know every groomer’s price list is different, but adding your offerings here could be worth the time because it will help yourr business listing show up for unique services.

For example, if someone is searching “nail clipping for poodle”, your business might not always show up, but if you were to add a “Nail Clipping - Poodles”, I can almost guarantee that you would be one of the first listings.

Just be sure to include all fields in your product listing including things like name, cost, category, description, and a linking bridge to your website's service page. Copy / pasting existing details from your website is fine!

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8. Get reviews

This section deserves a full article (and Teddy grooming software has a module to help you with boosting reviews), but for now I’ll cover the basics.

In local search rankings, reviews are increasingly becoming the driving factor for purchases.  According to Google themselves, high-quality positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility. They even highlight reviews containing keywords related to your product in the search results!

As I said, I'll publish a full article on this soon but some quick ideas to get started with reviews:

• Ask customers after appointments
• Utilize Google's review link
• Send a post appointment email

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Final notes

Em”bark”ing on these optimizations should take less than a half-hour and leave you with a Google Business Profile better than the groomer next store. Remember to keep your business information updated by doing periodic profile reviews every few months.

Good luck out there! Let’s rock n roll!