“Google My Business is a service that allows businesses and organizations to manage their online presence on Google”. Nevertheless, good many owners have had (or must) deal with a real bag of knots because of the evolutions of the platform and the constant desire of the engine to give pride of place to users. This article aims to identify the main problems that can be encountered when using the Google My Business platform; Please note, this list is not exhaustive and will not always offer a solution to the problems raised.
OWNERSHIP AND VALIDATION OF MY BUSINESS SHEETS
One of the main obstacles when using My Business is the ownership
of a business listing. When it is created, it may happen that your
establishment or one of your establishments already has an owner; this was
regularly the case in the days of Google+ where users could create profiles for
their company (see Google+ Local). Between employees who have left the company,
those who no longer have access, it is sometimes difficult to find the
interlocutor who has the property rights.
RECOVER THE PROPERTY OF A GOOGLE MY BUSINESS SHEET
If you have knowledge of the owner's email address for the
listing, it will be easy for you to transfer ownership. On the other hand, in
the event of a property conflict and if you do not know who the
"famous" owner of the listing is, you will have no choice but to go
through Google support.
NO TRANSFER OF OWNERSHIP POSSIBLE IN CERTAIN CASES
If the owner's email address is no longer active, you will have no
recourse for the transfer of ownership rights; even from the My Business support
team. As is, it is not possible to transfer ownership rights from one account
to another. The easiest solution is to reapply the ownership rights to each
address after Google My Business support removes the ownership of the address
to make it "available."
DOUBLES AT THE SHEET LEVEL: TWO TYPES OF DUPLICATES
Another recurring problem that you may face: duplicates at the
level of records. There are two kinds:
IF THE ESTABLISHMENT FORM HAS ALREADY BEEN VALIDATED BY ANOTHER OWNER
If a file corresponding to your establishment has already been
validated, the following notification will be displayed in your My Business
interface: "Authorization required". This means that your listing has
been recognized as a duplicate of another. Therefore, it will not be visible in
the search results of Google and its associated services. My Business will then
suggest that you contact the owner of the validated file to request the
transfer of ownership; an uncomplicated step to take if the owner of the
validated form is internal to your structure.
IF THE SHEET IS A DUPLICATE OF ANOTHER OF YOUR SHEETS (SAME POSTAL ADDRESS, SIMILAR STORE CODE, ETC.)
If your My Business interface displays the following notification
on your listing or one of your listings: "Duplicate establishment",
it will also not be visible in Google search results and its associated
services. In this case, this means that your file has been recognized as being
a duplicate of another file appearing in your My Business interface: same
postal address, similar store code, etc. Be careful, if you manage several
records and make global updates on them by importing a file in Excel or .csv
format, pay attention to the data entered in each cell. At the same time, pay
attention to the title of the various fields in the columns of the file, in
particular the "Store code" field, so that the platform correctly
overwrites the previous data from your records and thus does not create
duplicates.
HAVE THE MY BUSINESS SHEET CHECKED
The verification step of an establishment's listing can only be
done once the property has been recovered. In some cases, you will not be able
to validate your My Business file. It may happen that your mailing address is
the same as another business (shared building, coworking spaces, business
incubators, etc.). In this case, it will not be possible to have your file
verified unless you go through My Business support. At the same time, if your
establishment offers different activities and has several My Business cards to
present them, they will not all be visible if the postal address entered is the
same.
ADMINISTRATION, MANAGEMENT OF MY BUSINESS SHEETS
Beyond the property aspect, file management can be restrictive
when one of the following obstacles is encountered:
UPDATES FROM USERS 'SIDE WITHOUT PRIOR MODERATION
Any Google user can contribute, to a lesser extent, to updating a
file. However, this contribution cannot be moderated upstream of the
publication on the side of the managers. It therefore happens regularly that
users act on the opening hours of the establishment or the photos associated
with it. It may even happen that a competitor knowingly modifies the schedules
of a sheet. At the same time, it is not uncommon to see your property listing
receive false reviews. It may happen that some files are victims of spam
networks. Although Google may be aware of it, no action is being taken on its
part to combat these networks. To compensate for changing schedules or photos,
it is essential to regularly update the files, especially if the establishment
does not have fixed hours. Also pay attention to public holidays: indicate your
exceptional closing days so as not to create frustration with users.
CONTACT THE GOOGLE MY BUSINESS SUPPORT SERVICE
The majority of My Business listing managers agree on this point:
it is difficult, if not impossible, to have someone from Google My Business
support. Callback requests can take several months to be processed and, even if
you get a response, it is still necessary that the latter be consistent and
respond to the problem encountered.
NO CLEAR GUIDELINES ON THE GOOGLE SIDE
There is no shortage of material if you encounter a problem on My
Business; whether it is the Google support pages or the different site editors,
you should find a solution. Nevertheless, it can be criticized a lack of
readability in this flow of information. A lack of readability that Google
could respond to by sending clear guidelines on the steps to follow to properly
use the My Business platform.
SHEET UPDATES
Following a modification made to a business listing (image, name
of the listing, etc.), My Business will not tell you how long it will take for
the update to be taken into account. It should also be noted that certain
modifications can be rejected by My Business without giving the reason. In this
sense, the platform can raise “Quality issues” if your file does not respect My
Business best practices. For example, in the case where an establishment only
offers an online service and does not have an establishment that can
accommodate customers, this notification can go up and therefore prevent the visibility
of the record in Google search results. In some extreme cases, My Business may
even suspend a listing if it does not meet Google's guidelines. In this case,
Google can be rather vague on the reasons preventing the good visibility of the
sheet.
NO MUTUALIZATION BETWEEN SEVERAL SHEETS
Unless you use a third-party tool, you cannot share the
distribution of your publications on all of your business listings from your My
Business interface. At the same time, the same goes for the distribution of a
product catalog; the latter must be integrated file by file.
MONITORING THE PERFORMANCE OF MY BUSINESS SHEETS
Performance monitoring is not a real concern in itself because the
platform offers a summary of the statistics for each of your business listings.
Nevertheless, a few points of vigilance should be highlighted:
NO HOMOGENEIZATION WITH THE DIFFERENT GOOGLE TOOLS
Whether with Google Search Console, Google Analytics or Data
Studio, it is not possible for you to have a view of the performance of your
listings on essential Google tools. A local performance report in the Google
Search Console could be useful, for example.
STRUCTURED DATA INTEGRATION
Make sure that the web link on your business listing refers to a
page with the same information (postal address, hours, etc.) on which the
"Local Business" structured data appears.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS TRACKING IMPLEMENTATION
Finally, don't forget to implement the tracking code in order to
track the performance of your local pages from Google Analytics.
CONCLUSION
Despite the various issues raised, the Google My Business platform
remains a tool with many advantages and perfectly suited to small structures
such as VSEs / SMEs in order to optimize its local SEO; this is perhaps more
complex to take in hand when a structure manages several establishment files.
Nevertheless, it does benefit from a nice showcase in search results,
especially on Mobile:
Google My Business file from SEO Search Foresight agency in
Levallois-Perret
The platform knows how to adapt to the context and constantly
offers new attributes in order to best inform users about an establishment. Due to current penadamic situation,managers were able to create an
exceptional post that was put forward for a period of 14 days indicating a
temporary closure, new hours, new conditions of the delivery service, etc. . At
the same time, file managers now have the option of indicating the following
information: "compulsory appointment", "compulsory mask" in
the "Health and safety" section of a file.