The upcoming festive season is one of the most critical times for businesses throughout the year, as it is a golden opportunity to boost sales with Christmas purchases. For small or local businesses, this is an especially good opportunity to gain more traffic to their stores. Even according to a Google survey, about 60% of Americans plan to do their Christmas shopping at local businesses. A response to the visibility campaigns of the last year by small businesses, as part of the post-pandemic recovery process.
Similarly, to support this situation, the internet giant has prepared a for its platform, focused on facilitating processes for small businesses, and enhancing both their accessibility and visibility on the web for this Christmas.
Google will facilitate the requests and verifications of professional profiles
As the first update in this aspect, Google will update in the coming days the application and verification process for professional profiles on your platform will be more comfortable and easier to manage. This thanks to the fact that it can be done directly through Google’s own search engine or the Maps application, This way, it will only be necessary to search for the business name on Google, which will result in the option to request or review the business profile associated with that name.
Already done this, any type of information can be modified (address, hours, photos, etc.) in the same way. Additionally, merchants also they will be able to send messages to consumers directly from the Google search platform.
As Google itself explains:
“Another valuable way consumers engage with merchants is chatting with them. More and more people are turning to chat conversations with merchants of all sizes, from small businesses to global merchants like Levi’s. With business messaging, Levi’s was able to resolve 30x more store-related questions and saw a 31% increase in product-related conversations. Merchants tell us they want to improve their interactions with customers, so we’re announcing some new features to help them do just that.
Last year, we added functionality so that you can chat with customers directly on Google Maps. Now you can also view and reply to messages directly from your business profile on Google Search. It is also useful to know that the recipient received your message in the chat. With read receipts, both parties know if their messages were seen. This feature will be rolling out to all Business Profile merchants this month, further enriching the chat experience for customers and businesses.
Additionally, merchants in Canada and the United States will be able to validate their call history to confirm which calls were made from their business profile.
These changes herald a new way of accessing and managing Google My Business, which the company has confirmed, indicating that this will disappear for the next year, putting an end to one of the most veteran brands of the company, launched in 2014.
“From now on, we encourage small businesses to manage their listings directly in Search or Maps. To keep things simple, “Google My Business” will be renamed “Google Business Profile”. And in 2022, we will retire the Google My Business app so more merchants can take advantage of the improved Search and Maps experience. The current Google My Business web experience will transition to primarily support larger businesses with multiple locations, and will be renamed “Business Profile Manager.”
New available only in the United States and Canada (for now)
In the festive season there are generally two types of purchases: planned and last minute. To cover the first of these, consumers usually check the catalogs and the availability of the products, before approaching to make the purchase. To help sellers in this regard, the company recently announced the addition of a new search filter for available articles. ANDIt specifically shows nearby stores that have product availability, making it easier for users to search and boosting business visibility.
To make the upload process easier for sellers in Canada and the United States, they can also access the Pointy tool for free from search. This allows you to automatically upload all the business inventory to your business profile on the platform, just by connecting to your POS. Also if you already have a local inventory, it is possible to upload it through the Google Merchant Center. And, in the case of wanting to publicize a particular product, it can be incorporated without problems through the new Google Business Profile.
Local Campaigns, a function to boost physical stores
Finally, part of the recovery of the economy is to return to a bit of normalcy of the shopping experience, which is usually a characteristic factor of local businesses. For this reason, Google brings up the local campaigns or Local Campaigns. These allow promoting in-store or seasonal products, by promoting the location of the store and maximizing the value of the store. In this way, based on continuous learning technology and relevant business information, Google can more efficiently manage ad bids to attract more customers, whether on YouTube, Maps or other company products.
It is also proposed to make it easier to manage these campaigns with the implementation of the Performance Planning or Performance Planner tool. With this tool, the process of creating strategies for the implementation of these campaigns will be easier. Since it will allow defining the possible results, thus generating better decision-making on budgets.
Along with everything mentioned, it also has a new feature, which invites sellers to try. Performance Max campaigns, as the feature is called, allow you to drive business across all Google Ads channels simultaneously, driving exponentially more traffic to your stores.
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