Do you recall a few weeks ago when I talked with you about Bing, and the fact they are no longer featuring Yelp reviews as their primary review source? This is still the case, and now Bing seems to be making another change, or at least testing a change to the local panel.
Is Bing Testing Adding Questions & Answers to Their Local Panel?
Search Engine Roundtable reports that Bing has added Questions & Answers in their local panel. Unlike the Google Questions & Answers section, Bing seems to be pulling the question and the answer from the business’ website. Since I can only recreate the results mentioned in the article above on the exact same listing out of the 10 I checked, at this point I’m considering this as something Bing is testing. You can see it for yourself here.
That Bing is pulling the question and the answer from the business’ website can be quite powerful. If they were to roll this out to all Bing listings and pull more questions and answers, this could really help local businesses to answer the common questions they get from customers directly in the local panel.
Let’s switch gears now and discuss the Google Questions & Answers section.
Google Questions & Answers Shouldn’t Be Ignored
I’ve talked with you about Google Questions & Answers before. When Google first added this feature in 2017 it was only available on Android devices. Later Google rolled it out to iOS, and now it’s available on desktop too.
At this point, a consumer and business owner can ask and answer questions through desktop or mobile directly on the business’ Google My Business listing. Questions and answers cannot be added to the business’ listing through the Google My Business (GMB) dashboard.
At Advice Local we know how important it is for our agency, brand and franchise partners to be able to monitor, respond and easily add Questions & Answers to a GMB listing. And we have the solution to make it all possible. Through our Enhanced Google My Business tool you can schedule Questions & Answers to publish to a single Google My Business listing or multiple listings – which is perfect for brands and franchises. We feature how it works here.
Google Questions & Answers Feature Is Quite Powerful
The questions and answers section within a business’ GMB listing can be powerful indeed. We can only hope that Bing rolls it out to all their listings. For those of you that are not creating Bing listings for the local businesses you represent, we can help with this. We actually include creating a Bing listing within our listing management solution at no additional cost.
Beyond your adding questions and answers to a GMB listing for the consumer to view, Google also uses artificial intelligence (AI) to answer questions a consumer may ask within this section of a business’ GMB listing.
Google Pulls Answers From Reviews
Shown above is the suggested answer a consumer would get if asking about the business’ speed of service. As you can see, the suggested answer is pulled from the reviews section of the business’ Google My Business listing. Also, note that while the question is about their speed of service, the AI determines that a review that includes fast and prompt service is the best answer. This is so powerful – and proves without a doubt why a business needs to not only actively get reviews, but to monitor and respond to them.
Google Pulls Answers From Google My Business Posts
Google also pulls answers to these questions asked by consumers from Google My Business posts. In this example, the question is what are allergy symptoms, and Google’s AI pulls up a Google My Business post as the suggested answer.
This is another example of why you need to be adding Google My Business posts to a business’ GMB listing on a regular basis. And these posts should include questions and answers to the most common questions that relate to your clients’ businesses.
I shared a case study awhile back on how adding Google My Business posts and photos helps a business get more maps and search views. Today’s revelation is another example of just how important it is to add GMB posts to a business’ listing.
Getting a Question Featured for the Business Listing
Do you have a question on a business’ GMB listing that you want featured? Upvotes help make this possible. You can get correct answers featured on questions that have multiple answers with an upvote also. Focus on getting three upvotes for the question you want featured – same applies to get the correct answer featured.
What Steps Are You Going to Take to Leverage Questions & Answers?
We’ve covered quite a bit about Questions & Answers today. I recommend you put a process in place to get questions and answers written for your client’s Google My Business listing and uploaded on a schedule. You also need to be getting reviews and publishing Google My Business posts.
Why You Should Use #GoogleMyBusiness Questions & Answers by @BernieColeman #SEO #GMB
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We know that this takes quite a bit of effort – especially if you’re managing multiple Google My Business listings, as many of our Advice Local partners do. It’s time to request a demo – learn about our listing management solution, all the features available to help you manage your clients’ Google My Business listings, including our Google My Business tool, plus much more.
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