Google My Business is committed to providing valuable updates that not only improve ease-of-use for small business owners but provide the best search results information possible for their users. In response to this need, Google recently added a services section that allows business owners to create custom service categories with full written descriptions and individual pricing for each service. In this article, we will explain how the new Google My Business services feature works and what benefits it could potentially provide for your business.
The new services feature can be found from the Google My Business Dashboard under the “Info” section. If you click this, you will have the ability to begin building your services menu based on any different section names that you create as well as the individual services and associated prices under them. This allows business owners to separate services by category in the same structure system found on their existing website’s navigation bar. Once these options are filled out and all of your services have been added, you will have all of your services and their associated pricing conveniently attached to your Google My Business account.
In its current incarnation, the new services feature only appears when a business is accessed through the Google Maps application on mobile under the Menu option attached to your business listing. This name is subject to change in the future but is called “menu” currently because it shares the same code that was initially developed to provide restaurant menu options within the app. It is unclear, however, if this will be adjusted to meet the service industry chosen for the Google My Business listing in the future or will continue to piggyback on the existing functionality with little customization.
According to the official announcement provided by Google, the new services function isn’t available to all business types. For now, the feature has been launched for businesses in the service industry, such as florists, pest control companies, law offices or plumbers, and those in the health and beauty industry. This doesn’t mean that you won’t have the functionality available in the future if you don’t currently but you may have to wait for it to be fine-tuned before it becomes available.
Now that you know what the new services feature is used for and how to implement it in your Google My Business listing, it is important to determine what benefits or implications this new feature may have. It’s no secret that great content does play an important role in how well you will rank in search engine results. Essentially, the ability to add services to your Google My Business account could potentially provide more keywords and keyword phrases for your business listing to rank for.
It is important to remember that Google is providing a digital service that aims to give users the most accurate information in the fastest time possible. With the implementation of Google Assistant, these service listings could potentially be utilized to determine what local businesses nearby provide a service that users may be looking for and provide immediate information without the need to click-through to a website.
Unfortunately, this shift could lead to your website becoming less prominent as a means of conversion in the future. As Google continues to focus on improving their platforms to provide the most accurate information possible, it is important to optimize and complete your profiles as accurately as possible. The information contained in a completed profile will likely be a powerful source for business conversions in the future and increasing your Google ranking whenever possible is crucial.