While you might have already SEO optimised your website or be confident in where your social media appears when you search your business name, neglecting your Google Business Profile could be hurting your digital reputation or turning potential customers off to your brand.
So, let’s talk about managing your Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business listings, and some of our top tips for verification across both platforms.
If you’re not already aware, Google Business Profile is a free digital marketing tool. It’s what you use to claim and manage the information box that appears on Google Search and Maps when people search for your business (this is how it appears on desktop in the example below).
These information boxes contain snippets of key information such as your business name, location, opening hours, contact information and website, as well as a star rating that comes from reviews that have been left by people who have had an experience with your business.
It’s important to have control over this information box for many reasons:
Think about a situation where you’re somewhere new and searching online or using Maps for a café to try in the area. Are you going to trust the listing with little to no information on the menu, unverified opening times, no images and no recent reviews, or the one with easily accessible information on what it serves and when, some images and recent reviews with responses? In the absence of being able to verify the information you’ve been provided online in-person, the chances are you’re going to choose the location with a more trustworthy and easily identifiable digital presence.
So thinking as a customer and a business owner, managing your business’s own digital presence is more important than ever!
To create your own Google Business listing or to claim an existing one, you first have to be able to verify that you own the business. Sometimes this is pretty straightforward, and other times it can feel like you’re jumping through hoops, but here is some guidance to hopefully make the task a little easier.
Always opt for email verification if you can – this is the easiest way to verify your business. For this, you just have to be able to provide an email account that shares the same domain as your website/organisation, where you’ll receive a code that you have to input to complete the process.
If email verification isn’t an option, then opt for verification by phone next, as this is the next best choice. However, be aware that phone verification doesn’t work with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or other forms of automated phone technology, so if your business does have one of these systems in place to handle phone calls then be aware that you’ll need to temporarily disable it before you can proceed with phone verification. Like with email verification, you’ll receive a code.
Sometimes, you might only be left with the option of verifying via Business Video. This is unfortunately the most fiddly and time-consuming method of verification. Only opt for this method as a last resort, or if it’s the only option given.
It requires you to be on location (a potential issue if you have multiple locations spread out across the country), be logged in to your Google Business account on a mobile device and to take a live video in real-time of your business i.e., it can’t be recorded offline and then uploaded later.
The video has to document all of the following:
As well as the above, the video must also:
We highly recommend creating a plan first for what you will show in your video to make sure it meets the requirements before you hit Record, to save you having to repeat the process if you miss anything or accidentally capture sensitive information.
Recently, Google began rolling out photo verification as an option for EU businesses to verify their Business Profile. Apparently already a common verification method for US-based businesses, and with it now being trialled in the EU, it could only be a matter of time before this becomes an option for verification in the UK, too.
The rules appear to be similar to Business Video verification, with the image needing to:
In the current age of AI-automation being favoured over real human authentication, it’ll be interesting to see if this becomes a viable alternative for verifying a Business Profile if it gets introduced for UK businesses. While it’s always good to have more options for verification when others fail, small mismatches in what’s shown in the photo versus what the computer review expects to see could potentially create verification issues.
Whether this becomes a new way of verifying your Google Business listing in the UK or not, even just the idea of it reinforces how vital it is to regularly review your Business Profile to ensure that your business’s information is consistent across the board – both in-person and online.
Once you’re verified, add as much information as you can to your business listing – it all helps flesh out your Google Search and Maps presence and provides customers with all the information they might need:
In today’s digital landscape, it might feel like everything is all about Google, Google, Google. And while yes, it might be true that Google is the most dominant search platform (I mean, we don’t use the term “Google it” as synonymous with searching up something online for nothing), but don’t let that make you neglect your Microsoft-favouring customers too. There’s still plenty of value to obtain from making sure your business(es) are visible on Bing with the correct and most up-to-date information too, via Bing Places for Business.
And the best part is that if you’re already keeping on top of your Google Business Profile Manager organisation, then you’ve already done all the work! After Bing had a major overhaul of their Business Manager platform last November, it’s never been quicker or easier to keep on top of your Bing listings by simply syncing your Google Business Profile Manager with your Bing Places for Business account.
From there, Bing will carry over your business information over from your Google listing. And if you update your information on Google, Bing will automatically update that information too when it carries out its next automatic sync cycle. Or, if you’d prefer for it to update sooner, you can choose a manual sync option to force the information update quicker.
This makes your Google Business listings work twice as hard for you with no extra labour, even if perhaps you don’t think Bing will be valuable for your business. But it’s quick and easy to do and will increase your visibility on another search engine, so it’s a no brainer to set it up regardless.
Managing your search engine listings might seem small fry in the vast ocean of digital marketing, but think of your business listing as a digital storefront. It’s worth setting some time aside to make sure that you have control over the information that your potential customers and clients are being served, that all the information accurately reflects your business, and that it creates the right first impression. You can gain a lot of value from it for not much effort, and for free, no less!
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You can email us on info@destination-digital.co.uk or give us a call on 01629 810199 or you can use the contact form at the bottom of this page.