Managing a Google My Business (GMB) listing is no joke. It takes effort, a plan and when possible, a tool. This is exactly why we added a GMB tool to our product suite.

Add Google My Business Questions & Answers With Our GMB Tool

I’m so excited to share this with you – a new feature was added to our Enhanced GMB Tool. Through our tool, you can now add Questions & Answers to your clients’ Google My Business listings. You can also answer questions posted by the public – score!

Shown above is an example of how easy it is to add a Question and an Answer to a Google My Business listing with our tool. Sure, when you’re managing one GMB listing it’s pretty simple to log in directly to that GMB listing and add a question, but have you tried it for 10 or more listings? What about monitoring the Questions & Answers for more than one listing? Now consider a multi-location brand or business where you need to add the same question and answer across all their listings? It can get really complicated to track which listing you have added the questions to, reviewed, and so on. Now calculate how time consuming this is for you and/or your team members – or even for your client.

With our GMB tool you can select which GMB listings the Question and Answer should be added to. You can add the question to all of them with a Select All option, or select the listings individually.

Shown above is an example of the option to select the listing you would like the Question and Answer added to individually. Notice the date and time option. You can schedule when these questions and answers will appear on the listing.

Using filters, you can even elect to see the unanswered questions only. This makes it so easy to see all the business listings you manage at a glance.

Did you know that the keywords within questions and answers can help a business listing to surface in the local map pack for certain queries? These mentions can absolutely make all the difference within a GMB business listing.

Our Google My Business Tool Is Powerful

Yes, there is more – Questions and Answers isn’t the only feature available through our Enhanced GMB Tool. Here’s a summary of what you can do with our powerful Google My Business tool.

• Schedule GMB Posts
• Schedule GMB Photos
• Schedule Questions & Answers
• Monitor and respond to Reviews
• Monitor Questions and Answers
• Access Historical Insights data

All of these features are available at the single location or multi-location level. You can complete these activities on one single GMB listing through the tool, or on all of them. It really is that powerful and that simple.

Keeping a GMB listing updated is one of the best ways (and with our GMB tool, the easiest) to help that client’s listing to surface more often in the Local Map Pack.

If your client wants direct access to the GMB tool, you can delegate user level access to their business listing in our platform, and they’ll be able to do the monitoring, responding and scheduling within our Google My Business enhanced tool.

Our #Google My Business #Tool Lets You Add Questions & Answers via @BernieColeman #GMB
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Expertise Is Important and We Can Help You Demonstrate It

As you may recall, earlier I spoke about why local businesses need to demonstrate their expertise online, and ways to accomplish this. Well, our Google My Business tool is the perfect solution to make this possible.

At Advice Local, it’s our mission to provide superior listing management solutions and tools for our partners. Request a demo today and you can learn all about this GMB tool, plus all our product features.

The post Our Google My Business Tool Lets You Add Questions & Answers appeared first on Advice Local.

An optimized Google My Business listing on Google is essential, and we all know it. It’s important that every element within a Google My Business (GMB) listing is complete. If you haven’t personally optimized a GMB listing for a local business, you definitely need  to learn how.

We talk about Google My Business a lot at Advice Local… and there’s an important reason we do it. It’s simple – they dominate more than 86% of market share! This means consumers trust them and the information available on their powerful engine.

Understanding Google My Business Attributes

Today, instead of focusing on the entire GMB listing, I’m going to focus on attributes specifically. In the past, there weren’t that many attributes to add on a business’ listing, but now there are quite a few available! The availability of these attributes will also change based on the category the listing falls within.

Why Use Google My Business Attributes

Attributes help Google to understand more about the business – this ultimately helps it to appear more often in the local map pack. Attributes also help the consumer to visually see information about the business easily.

Here are the Google My Business attributes you need to review and complete within your clients’ GMB listings today.

1. Highlights Attributes

The Highlights attributes shares information about who owns and/or leads the business. In these examples we’re showing you Advice’s attributes. Here you can see how it looks when selecting the attributes, and how it is displayed in maps.

2. Health & Safety Attributes

There are quite a few attributes to choose from. The Health & Safety attributes enables the business to share their safety protocols. With COVID-19 to contend with, this is an important attribute to add.

In this example, you can see the options available and how it appears on the GMB listing in maps.

While it’s not shown in the example above, you should also make sure to add links to the business’ website for the COVID-19 protocols page (if they have one), and if they are a doctor or medical practice, to their online care portal. You can explore a detailed how-to on COVID business listing optimization strategies.

3. Service Attributes

For businesses that sell products, there’s a set of Service Attributes. This enables the business to signal to potential customers if they can get delivery, curbside pickup and more. This example below shows you the attributes options that are available, and how it looks on the map listing.

As I said, the attributes available and the items available under each attribute shift based on the category the listing falls under. So instead of seeing service options like in-store shopping in the above example, a medical practice or physician will see service options that include online care.

4. Other Attributes Available

I won’t go into all of the attributes today for the sake of time and length, but there are several more available that you should make sure are completed for each of your clients’ GMB listings.

• Accessibility
• Amenities
• Payments
• Planning

Even if you have looked at your client’s attributes within the last few months, I want to encourage you to run through them again. Why? Because just recently, Google has added even more.

Creating a GMB Listing Is Not One and Done

Once a GMB listing is created you or the client need to monitor it and make continual updates to that listing.

Dripping out GMB posts and images is one way to make sure your clients’ GMB listings stay front and center before consumers. Adding Questions & Answers is another way. You’ll also want to make sure you are continually getting new reviews – and responding to them.

Now imagine for a minute how long it takes to log into a single GMB listing to review it and make updates. We’ll say 15 minutes for this experiment. Take that amount of time and multiply it by the number of GMB listings you manage. As a conservative estimate we’re going to say 10. So, 15 minutes per listing x 10 GMB listings = 2.5 Hours.

If you’re adding a GMB post and photos to the listing this can take even longer. And when adding items such as a post or photos, you don’t want to add them all at one time or in the middle of the night (when you finally have a minute). You want them uploaded and published during hours that people are awake and shopping, buying, searching, etc. You also want them planned out and published on a schedule.

Wouldn’t it be great if you had a tool that would enable you to schedule posts and photos in advance? Instead of having to log in on a weekly basis to a client’s GMB listing to add new photos and posts, you could schedule them in advance. At Advice Local, we have the perfect tool to make this happen.

Enhanced Google My Business Tool

Our Enhanced GMB tool has these features and more. Here’s a breakdown of things you can do through our Google My Business tool:

1. Schedule posts, offers and events
2. Schedule geo-optimized photos
3. Monitor and respond to reviews
4. Access historical insights data

While we’ve broken it down to the four simple points above, behind the scenes this powerful Google My Business technology does so much more.

Adding #GoogleMyBusiness Attributes to Small Business Listings by @BernieColeman #GMB #SEO
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Once you have a superior tool like ours in place, you can spend the additional time you gain focused on getting new clients and growing your business. At Advice Local, we’re all about helping our partners shine online. Request a demo to learn how we can help you today!

The post Adding Google My Business Attributes to Small Business Listings appeared first on Advice Local.

Over the last month or so we have talked quite a bit about voice search and creating conversational voice apps. There is a big reason for this. Voice search isn’t going away and voice assistants are here to stay as well. And getting a local business found by voice assistants is not getting easier.

At Advice Local, we are dedicated to helping local businesses get found. That’s why today we are going to share how our technology has the markup that voice assistants love baked right in.

All Businesses Need a Voice App Solution

Local marketers and brands simply cannot afford to ignore such an important component of search. Using all the important markup languages such as Local Business Schema, FAQ Schema and Speakable Schema is essential to helping a local business get found in voice search.

Did You Know?

1. Our listing management technology automatically creates Local Business, FAQ & Speakable Schema Markup for all active business listings in our dashboard.
2. This voice markup is applied to all business listings on our directory, Judy’s Book.
3. We have the JSON-LD available for you to download within our dashboard and get added to the client’s website.

Within the Advice Local dashboard, for each of your clients’ active listings, there is a section entitled Voice Search Data. To access it, you’ll log into your partner dashboard, select an active client, click the Edit Client tab and then select Voice Search Data.

At the very top of this page you’ll see a script. It says “Copy and paste the following code snippet in your index or default page inside the HEAD tag.” This is the JSON-LD script – when you get this added to your client’s website, you’ll be able to provide answers about the business for voice assistants.

JSON-LD works dynamically. This means that any time you answer a question or change an answer to a question about the business within our technology, the new information will be available to the voice assistant. While you won’t actually see the questions and answers in the script, they are there, because we have them stored within our technology. The script is a call to our technology to provide the answer to the question.

By the way, this is available for all the active business listings within our technology at no additional charge. It’s only available for platform partners, so if you’re on the legacy dashboard, you’ll need to upgrade to have the Voice Search Data section.

Have You Answered the Voice Search Data Questions?

In the Voice Search Data section you’ll find quite a few questions to complete. We have populated the most common questions for you, but if you answer the additional pertinent questions you will be increasing the chances of greater visibility in voice assistants for the local business you are editing.

Default Messages is the first section you’ll come to. This section is focused on responses for the conversational voice app integration within our technology.

To get started, these are the primary sections you’ll want to review:

• General Questions – These are the basic questions about the business – for instance, does the business offer a military discount?
• Brick-and-Mortar – These are questions about location, such as is the building handicap accessible, is parking available, free WIFI,
• Service Area Business – Here you will address questions that answer what the business’ service fee is, and so on.
• Events and Establishments – These questions are directed toward whether the business has recurringevents such as Happy Hours, band performances, etc.
• Industry Questions – In this section you’ll select the business’ industry, such as healthcare, home services, etc. The questions will differ based on the industry.

Adding Voice Search Data to Your Client’s Website

We realize you may not be a web developer or won’t have access to add this JSON-LD script to the client’s site. We recommend you talk with your client about voice search, go through the questions with them in each section and get their answers.

While you’re talking with your client about adding the script to the website, it would be the perfect time to upsell them on creating a conversational voice app.

If you’re not yet familiar with our conversational voice app solution, our technology uses the answers to the questions within the Voice Search Data section to instantly create a voice app and submit it to the Google and Amazon app stores. Most voice apps are live within three days.

Not to brag, but our voice app solution is one of the first of its kind – and definitely the easiest to use – especially because we do all the heavy lifting. You can read about all of our voice features in our announcement.

Add Markup #VoiceAssistants Love to a Local #Business #Website says @BernieColeman
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Voice Search Usage Will Continue to Increase

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it 1,000 more times if necessary – voice search isn’t going away. By 2023 it’s predicted that there will be over 8 billion voice assistants in use.

Are you helping your local business clients get found by voice assistants? Request a demo today and find out how we can help you.

The post How to Add Markup Voice Assistants Love to a Local Business Website appeared first on Advice Local.

At Advice Local, we’re all about our partners, we’re all about local search and we are definitely all about Google My Business (GMB). And why are we all about Google My Business? We’re glad you asked, let’s get to it!

Google Owns Search Engine Market Share

It’s simple – Google controls the web. According to Statista, as of April 2020 Google had 86.02% of the market share. While this number has declined 4 percentage points since 2010, it holds pretty steady in this range.

Since Google controls the web, imagine their massive influence over consumers – what they see in search results, where they shop – and which businesses’ websites they frequent. They have a captive audience like no other search engine.

This is exactly why at Advice Local we are all about Google My Business, and our latest technology integration is focused 100% on helping our agency and brand partners to better serve their SMB customers with Google My Business management.

Introducing Our Enhanced Google My Business Tool

Our newest technology integration, Enhanced GMB Tool, makes it easier for you to manage multiple Google My Business listings from a single dashboard.

For our current Advice Local platform partners, this GMB tool is available in your dashboard right now. Simply go to the location you would like to use the tool for, and head over to the Order tab. From there, you’ll be able to select Enhanced GMB Tool and place your order. If you have questions along the way, be sure to reach out to your account manager.

Here’s a peek into everything our powerful new Google My Business tool has to offer.

1. Google My Business Posts

You can schedule a single Google My Business post in advance for a single location, or across all of a multi-location brand’s GMB listings. Our GMB tool takes it even further and lets you customize the post with dynamic field insertion.

You can easily insert the business name, city, phone number and website URL within the post. And when you add the fields it will customize the post automatically for all the locations you are posting to.

All the GMB post features available within the GMB listing are available within the dashboard. It’s simple to use, and such a time saver. Being able to schedule posts months and months in advance for one location or 100 with a few clicks is a winner.

2. Upload Photos to the GMB Listing

How many times have you needed to upload the same image across multiple business listings? Just keeping track of which location you already uploaded the image to is frustrating. And each time, optimizing the EXIF data of the image so it’s specific to that location?

Our GMB tool makes it easy to upload images across multiple GMB listings and will automatically add the EXIF data appropriate for the location(s) you have selected for the photo to publish to. This is available for scheduling also, so you can drip out photos to your client’s GMB listings over time rather than all at once.

3. Review Monitoring and Responding

Yes, you read that correctly – review responding. From a single dashboard you monitor reviews for all the locations for a brand, and reply to each one individually. You never have to leave our dashboard. While a few other tools may offer this feature, it is not as simple as this.

You’ll be able to see information such as if the review has already been replied to by another team member, and if someone has replied, even change the review response. Again, it’s so simple – and truly an important functionality to leverage.

4. Access Historical Insights Data

Through the GMB listing itself you can get a snapshot of insights data for a specific location. Through our GMB tool, you can get historical insights data and compare it to previous periods.

You’ll be able to evaluate at-a-glance items, like if the map views are going up for a specific listing, or going down, and if the GMB listing search appearance is on a rise or a decline! All of the features available within GMB insights are available from our dashboard at a glance – for one location or for all of them. This feature alone is extremely powerful in demonstrating to your local business clients how the effort you’re putting into their GMB listing is paying off. If you are not sure why GMB insights data is important, here’s why.

#GoogleMyBusiness Management Just Got Easier via @BernieColeman #GMB #SEO
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Scalable Google My Business Solutions Are a Click Away

We’re all about local search made easy – and this Google My Business Tool for agencies and multi-location brands will definitely make local search easier for you, your team members and more importantly, your local business clients.

We just made managing your clients’ GMB listings simple. Request a demo and learn all about this feature and our other listing management solutions.

The post Google My Business Management Just Got Easier appeared first on Advice Local.

Today I am excited to share with you that our directory, Judy’s Book, now has integrated voice search capabilities within the business listings on the site. The business listing entity data is available and visible to voice search engines and voice devices. Keep reading to see how it works.

Advice Local’s Presence Engine Applies Voice Profile Technology

 Each business listed in Advice Local’s technology has all of the following applied to their business’ listing on Judy’s Book in real time – and it’s all done automatically.

• Local Business Schema
• Review Schema
• FAQ Schema
• Speakable Schema

This powerful combination ensures businesses will get found in desktop, mobile and in voice searches.

For all our Platform Partners, this has already been completed for the active listing management clients in our technology. If you are a current Advice Local partner, but still on our legacy system, here’s another reason you need to upgrade today!

 As shared in our press release announcement:

“Voice represents a powerful marketing tool for business everywhere” said Bernadette Coleman, CEO of Advice Local. Coleman went on to say, “We are very excited about developing and deploying our voice technology solutions to help businesses worldwide. Voice provides deeper engagement opportunities than just about any other technology in our industry today.”

This new voice search technology really separates Judy’s Book from other online directories and web properties.

Voice Assistants Have An Important Role

Voice assistants play an important role in our everyday lives. How many times each day (or week) do you ask your Google Home, “What is the weather going to be like today?” Imagine how many people around the world ask their voice assistant this exact question each morning when deciding what to wear. In fact, I asked that question just a few hours earlier.

Voice assistants are convenient – they enable us to continue on with our day without stopping to pick up a smart device or run a query on Google Search from our desktop computer.

People like convenience and multi-tasking. And they really like handsfree — I might go so far as to say we love handsfree. And voice assistants allow for this. So as local marketers – and marketers in general actually – it’s our responsibility to consider these conveniences that consumers like and adapt the services we offer, so our clients can meet this need for their customers.

This is exactly why at Advice Local we are dedicated to creating voice technologies that our agency partners can offer to their small business and brand clients. Getting businesses found online is what we do best!

We started this quest by creating the first-of-its-kind Voice Search Readiness Score and we are going to continue with this same dedication. The use of voice search isn’t going to decline – in fact Statista forecasts that by 2023 the number of digital voice assistants will reach around eight billion.

Breakthrough #VoiceTechnology Is Available on #JudysBook shares @BernieColeman
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We’ve Got Voice Search Covered For You, Too

Are you equipping your local business clients with the technology they need to ensure that their prospective customers are finding them in voice searches? Request a demo – a member of the Advice Local team will share how our powerful voice search solutions can help you – and how it all starts with a superior listing management technology.

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