This summer, Google announced new features businesses may use to enhance their Google My Business (GMB) listing.
According to Google, the new GMB features will help businesses “make their profiles as unique as they are and as descriptive as the queries that get customers there.”
Let’s take a look at these new features.
Give Welcome Offers to First Time Customers
Businesses can reward customers who follow their online presence with an offer or discount. According to Google, more than half of online customers look for an offer or discount.
Create a Short Name for Your Google My Business Presence
Have you ever looked at your GMB URL? It’s usually a bunch of numbers and letters—nothing you’d want to add to a business card or email. Plus, it’s not very memorable.
Now business owners can claim an easily remembered unique short name for their GMB presence. Businesses will be able to change their short name up to three times a year.
Very soon, these short names will be searchable on Google.
Specify Your Business GMB Cover Image
Business owners can now set their preferred cover image for their GMB presence.
Give More Presence to Business Logos
For businesses with completed GMB profiles, Google will give prominence to their logo in the upper right-hand of their GMB box.
More Prominence for Photos
Google will add a new dynamic module to GMB profiles to display photos uploaded by businesses.
Very soon, businesses will be able to add photo captions to their photos.
Rewarding Business with “Local Favorite” Designation
Google also announced a forthcoming “Local Favorite” designation. The top 5 percent of businesses that show consistent and great customer experiences will be highlighted in the “Local Favorite” category.
Why it’s Time to Get Your Google My Business Profile Up to Speed
These new features show Google’s commitment to making branded search results a final destination to customer searches.
As we mentioned in our recent article Why You Should Audit Your Google My Business Presence:
In recent years, Google has not-so-quietly been staging a bit of a takeover on the Web. Not content to be the largest search engine in the world, Google is actively working toward a “zero-click-query” environment.
Basically, Google wants to serve up answers to searcher queries—without sending them to a website. Google wants to keep users on Google.
To stay competitive in local online search, businesses should take full advantage of the features available on GMB. Doing so will help the business develop and maintain a robust online presence that’s not solely dependent on a website for converting searchers to clients.
Don’t Have Time to Manage Your Google My Business Profile?
Many business owners might look at their GMB profile as just more tasks to add to their busy schedules. However, to stay relevant with local searches, they’re necessary tasks to aid in the future success of your business.
That’s why we’re here. Give Business Solutions Unlimited a call at (904) 429-4588 and let us get to work for your business today.