Google Has Temporarily Removed Features From GMB – Find Out Why
Google has announced this week that it has temporarily removed a number of features from Google My Business as due to limitations caused by the COVID-19 situation.
“During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, we are taking steps to protect the health of our team members and reduce the need for people to come into our offices. As a result, there may be some temporary limitations and delays in support as we prioritize critical services.”
For the time being, these features will be temporarily limited or removed.
An Unprecedented Situation
During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, we are taking steps to protect the health of our team members and reduce the need for people to come into our offices. As a result, there may be some temporary limitations and delays in support as we prioritize critical services.
Our current focus is on the quality and reliability of the information on Google Search and Maps. We want to ensure users and business owners have access to essential features like whether the business is open or has special hours. Learn about best practices for affected businesses, and what you can do to keep your customers informed.
Explaining The Changes
Google explains that other changes to the GMB service include:
Business information edits – We will prioritize reviews for edits critical to health-related businesses.
This includes reviews for:
- Changes to open and closed states
- Special hours
- Temporary closures
- Business descriptions
- Business attributes
If your business does not provide a critical, health-related service then it may be some time before you see any edits go live on your GMB listing.
Newly created listings, claims, and verifications – Our support team will manually review new listings, claims, and verifications for critical health-related businesses. While we prioritize these critical services, please expect a delay for publication of new listings, claims, and verifications for other types of businesses to Google Search and Maps.
Reviews and Q&A – New reviews, review replies, and all Q&A will be unavailable during this time.
In a statement to Search Engine Journal, local marketing expert Bill Hartzer gave his thoughts on the decision to restrict these features:
“Most likely, Google is doing this because they want to make sure that the information provided is valid and from trusted sources. I can only imagine how quickly the Q&A could potentially get out of hand if they allowed anyone to answer questions.”
Prioritising Critical Services
That means, with Google prioritising critical services, other types of businesses can expect a delay for publication of new listings, claims, and verifications.
One Area Remains Untouched
However, one aspect which has not yet been impacted are Google Posts. That means, if you have new updates to share with your customers, you can still use your GMB listing to publish posts.
That may change as time goes on, however, as these are unpredictable times we’re living through. Take advantage of Google Posts while it’s still available.
Boost Your Reputation & The Way Google Views Your Business
Everyone knows that your reputation can be impacted by customer reviews but did you know that your Google rankings can be as well?
Basically, there are 2 types of customer review. On-site reviews and reviews left on 3rd party websites.
- 3rd Party Reviews – These reviews are typically left on 3rd party websites (which are not controlled by the business) including Facebook, Yell, FreeIndex and Google Maps. These may then be displayed via the business website.
- On-Site Reviews – These reviews are usually submitted directly to the business and will then be added to the website in the form of either ‘reviews’ or ‘testimonials’.
The addition of reviews to your website (both good and bad) will offer the chance to add regular unique to your website. Not only this, reviews provide new customers with an idea of the type of experience they should expect to receive.
Make It As Easy As Possible To Leave A Review
Making it as easy as possible to leave reviews is crucial if you want your customers to leave their views on your business.
Very few people will take the time to leave their thoughts without some sort of prompt. A clear guide on your website or an e-mail reminder will prove to be beneficial.
A recent article by Search Engine Land found that up to 79% of people are now prepared to put as much faith on an online review as the recommendation of a friend or family member.
Such is the ease of access that potential customers have to the internet through their smartphones, tablets, PCs and laptops, it has never been easier to seek out online reviews of products and services offered by various companies all around the world — including people who have used your business in the past.
Making A Positive Difference
Put yourself in the position of a customer using a company for the first time. If they have 2 companies offering similar services/products at similar prices, they are very likely to want to draw from another variable to help them make a decision on which company to use.
More often than not, customer feedback is now this variable. The difference between being able to view other customer’s experience and taking a virtual leap of faith can turn a potential sale into a loss of business.
Contact Us
If you would like to speak to someone about gaining more reviews for your business, please contact Footprint Digital on Tel. No. 01883 372488 today.
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Is Your Website Fast Enough?
It is possible that the loading speed of a website can impact the number of visitors to your website and ultimately, the number of sales that you? According to surveys done by Akamai and Gomez.com, approximately 50% of all web users expect a website to be loaded and usable within just 2 seconds and will look elsewhere if it hasn’t loaded within 3 seconds!
A Mistake That Cannot Be Recovered From?
Perhaps even more concerning was the fact that over 75% of the web shoppers who were quizzed that had problems with web site performance expressed that they were unlikely to return again, with just less than 50% saying that would tell a friend if they had a poor experience shopping online.
Please Note – It is important to note though that the speed at which your site is ready to be used is not purely down to the actually loading speed of your website. Factors such as poor internet connection, outdated equipment etc can also play a crucial role.
However, this does not mean that every possible step should not be taken in order to ensure that your site is primed and ready to go.
Going The Extra Mile
At Footprint Digital, we like to go that extra mile to ensure that during the design process, we put everything in place to ensure that your website is primed to load quickly.
By focusing on 3 crucial aspects of web design (plus much more) we will help to ensure that your website is ready to load as quickly as possible for your customers.
- Correct implementation of Javascript and CSS
- Image optimisation
- Cache optimisation
Mobile-First Indexing
With the implementation of Google’s ‘Mobile-First Indexing’, the loading speed of your website does now impact the rankings on mobile search results*.
What actually is mobile-first indexing though? According to Google, “Mobile-first indexing means Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.” Click here for more.
If you are not ticking the right boxes in Google’s eyes, not only does this mean you may potentially be losing conversions from actual visitors to your site, but you may also even be losing on potential future custom from their friends and colleagues as well. The end result – missing out on lots of potential sales simply down to something which is taking a few seconds too long.
Contact Us
If you would like to know how we can help to improve the loading speed of your website, please contact the Footprint Digital team today on Tel. No. 01883 372488 and we will be happy to help you.
Currently Browsing: Is Your Website Fast Enough?
