Why your college needs a Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) listing is the featured snippet of information that appears when someone types your college’s name into Google, or if they’re searching for colleges in your area.
If you’re unsure what a Google Business Profile is, here’s what it looks like:
Nearly every college will already have a GBP of some sort because Google creates them automatically based on search data it gathers over time. But the problem is that a lot of colleges don’t take the time to own and optimise their profile.
Let’s take a look at why it’s so important to have a fully optimised Google Business Profile for your college, and the major benefits that come with it.
1. Control your college’s public information
Google Business Profiles provide candidates and parents with a clear overview of who you are as an organisation as well as any top-level public information they might need to know. And the great thing about this is that, by having ownership of your profile, you can manage how your college appears to candidates, parents and students in Google searches – including Google Maps.
You choose what details you want to include on your profile, and you can update them at any time. For example, if your college name changes, it takes seconds to update.
Or if you decide there’s something on your profile that isn’t helpful for people to see (the number of students you have or who founded the college, for example) you can leave the field blank and it won’t appear on your profile.
It’s important to keep these details accurate so that they match up with other information they can find about your college online (on your website, for example). Otherwise, this can negatively impact your SEO.
It’s worth noting too that your ‘about’ section will be scraped from your college’s Wikipedia page if you don’t fill in this section of your GBP. So, if you’re not happy with how your college is described on Wikipedia, be sure to fill this section out.
2. Increase your visibility in Google Searches
A Google Business Profile will make your college more visible to anyone using Google as their search engine. In other words, these profiles are great for your college’s SEO.
GBPs are particularly good for generating local search traffic because they link closely with Google Maps. Any college with a GBP will have a Google Map pin that shows people exactly where the college is located (if the profile has the correct address, that is!).
An optimised profile will help you rank higher in search results for any candidates searching for teaching jobs in your area. If a jobseeker is doing some research and they type ‘colleges near me’ into a search engine, a ‘local pack’ or ‘map pack’ will appear with a list of colleges and their locations on the map. A fully optimised Google Business profile will increase your chances of appearing in the pack.
If you don’t have a Google Business Profile, you won’t appear in the map pack. Just think about the impact this will be having on your visibility with potential candidates!
3. Improve your college’s employer brand
Would you apply for a job with an employer that had virtually no online presence? Or worse still, a negative one? Colleges are no different. Prospective candidates will do their research when applying for teaching roles, and what they find on your Google profile really matters.
An optimised Google Business Profile will give candidates a good impression of your college and can even help build your employer brand. Every profile has a section for displaying reviews, and this is a great opportunity to provide social proof by encouraging current teachers to leave positive reviews about their experience working at your college.
If you have no Google reviews, Google will scrape any reviews it can find from other websites like Facebook instead. And if you’ve no reviews from staff, candidates will just see reviews left by parents and alumni.
Therefore, it’s a good idea to encourage your staff to leave positive reviews about working at your college, so that potential candidates come across them when searching for roles in their area.
4. It’s free marketing
Google Business Profiles are free to any business, so why wouldn’t you take advantage of free marketing like this?
Branding up your college’s profile is good marketing, but you can also go a step further by publishing regular updates about your college to your profile too. So maybe you post an update about an award your college just won, or about an event you just held on the college grounds. You can publish images alongside your updates too, which will make your profile stand out visually in search results.
And if that’s not enough, you can even link up your college’s social media accounts to your GBP too. Link your profile up with your college’s Twitter account and it will pull through your most recent tweets to the page.
Posting updates like this to your profile shows candidates you’re an active college that cares about its brand and image. And who wouldn’t want to work for an organisation like that?
5. You can answer FAQs
Near the bottom of Google Business Profiles, there’s a ‘Question and answer’ section that’s really underutilised by colleges. You can use this section to answer common questions about your organisation but also to promote things about the college too.
If you find that candidates and learners tend to phone the college regularly with the same questions, answering these on your profile can save reception a lot of time having the same conversations repeatedly.
But most importantly, you can use this section to plug your college’s careers site. As the manager of your profile, you can post and answer questions yourself – you don’t have to wait for a member of the public to ask. So submit questions like “Where can I find information about job opportunities at this college?” and then provide an answer with a link to your careers page. It’s a great way to send as much candidate traffic as possible straight to your careers site or jobs page.
Remember that your Google Business Profile is closely linked to your college’s website and careers page too. Therefore, it’s important to ensure the information on your website is always up to date and reflects what’s on your Google profile. This all contributes towards getting your college noticed when candidates are searching for their next job.
As you can see, there are a whole load of excellent benefits that come with having a verified and well-optimised Google Business Profile for your college.
About the author
Katie Paterson
Katie Paterson is a writer and digital marketer specialising in recruitment, marketing, HR technology, and business growth. She lives in Glasgow, Scotland.