Log-in or Lose It
By now hopefully you know that your Google My Business (aka Google+ page for their business) likely drives more phone calls to your business than any other source, including your website.
For the largest share of local searches, mostly done now on mobile, this page delivers three critical functions:
1. Click to your website
2. Click for directions
3. Click to call
Like the old phone book, this is what makes the phone ring! And you can track how many times it happens every month by checking your Google Insights.
Start making that a habit, because Google recently stated that if a business does not log-in to its Google My Business account, then the account may be unverified.
Last month, Google’s Jane Wang posted in the Announcements category of the Google and Your Business Help Fourm:
In some cases, we may contact Google My Business users via email to confirm that they are still actively managing a business page. If a user is unresponsive to our attempts to contact him or her and has not logged into Google My Business for a significant length of time, then we may unverify pages in the account. We’re doing this in order to continue to provide users with the best experience when they’re looking for local businesses like yours.
SearchEngineLand’s Matt McGee reported on a post from Brian Barwig at Integrated Digital Marketing noting his conversation with a Google rep at the Ann Arbor call center who told him the listings were unverified after 6 months of no activity.
Part of our Online Monitoring is to log-in every month and snapshot your Google Insights. We highly recommend every business keep an eye on its Google My Business views and clicks as key part of understanding your online presence.
