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By: Jacob Robinson
On July 28th, Google began to shut down unclaimed Google My Business (GMB) accounts. They are also going to “unverify” inactive Google My Business Pages.
This news is critical for business owners to understand, as it has the potential to impact your business’s overall web presence. In case you don’t know what your GMB page is – it’s essentially a listing for your business on the internet, that provides consumers your business’s product/service information, location, contact information, testimonials and much more!
Not only is your GMB page an avenue for customers to find you, but it also plays an important role in the organic rankings of your website within search engine results. If your GMB page becomes unverified and subsequently shut down, you’ll start to lose out on potential customers. Here example email that’s been circulating.
Why Google, Why?
You may be asking yourself the above question. The answer’s quite simple. Google is performing a “housekeeping” of sorts. Google wants to provide the best experience to its customers (searchers) as possible.
As Google put it, “these changes, including how we treat business pages without owners, are part of Google’s ongoing effort to simplify people’s experience with our tools. We are constantly working to provide only valuable rich content to our users”.
Ready, Set, Plan of Action
Alright, we know what’s going on, but how do we make sure that our listings don’t become unverified and deleted. It’s actually quite easy, and if you’re working with Townsquare, it’s even easier (we’ll walk you through it, step by step).
- Periodically log in and make edits to your GMB account so that it does not become unverified.
- Update business photos and videos
- Change your business description
- Respond to customer reviews
- Verify your contact information
- Verify your unverified listings so that they will not be deleted.
In essence Google is forcing businesses to do, what in reality, they should already be doing. Verifying your listing will help your website’s SEO and making changes to your GMB page keeps your online presence nice and fresh. So thanks, Google!
If you have questions about this latest change to GMB or have questions about your online presence, our digital specialists can help.