Last week, The Wall Street Journal posted an article exposing an estimated 11 million fake business listings on Google Maps. That same day, Google released both a response to the article and updates to Google My Business (GMB). For the real businesses that are dealing with fake listings on Google Maps, these latest updates appear to be a quick solution to Google’s ongoing battle with fake business listings.

The Reality of Google Maps’ Fake Listing Problem

With over 150 million businesses listed on Google Maps, fraudulent listings take up about 7.3% of all businesses on Google Maps. Using a combination of Google’s own internal system and flagged listings by users, Google has been working to decrease the appearance of fake listings. Last year alone, Google took down over 3 million fake listings but fake listings continue to grow year after year.

Why are people making fake listings? We have some thoughts.

• Competitors: There are cases will the competition will create fake listings in order to provide consumers with inaccurate contact information.
• Scammers: Some people are creating fake listings to scam people, like the woman profiled in the WSJ article who unknowingly hired a fake contractor off Google and charged her double.

Fake listings are causing consumers to lose trust in Google Maps and the real businesses that rely on GMB to acquire customers, which is why it’s so important that Google is making updates to combat fake listings.

Google Maps Latest GMB Update

Google’s recent Google My Business update includes several features that are designed to help both consumers and Google distinguish fake business listings from the real ones. This update introduces some features that reward active and accurate businesses:

• Logo Feature: Google is rewarding businesses who complete theirNAPWCHD information by displaying the business’ logo to the right of their profile. This will help consumers identify real listings from fake ones. 

• Cover Photos: It looks like Google is giving back the power to choose a cover photo to the business.

• Photo Displays: Google is introducing a new module that will prominently display photos uploaded by the business. 

• Welcome Offers: Businesses can now reward customers who follow the business’ GMB profile with custom discounts or offers.

• Short Name Searchability: Coming soon, consumers will be able to search for a business by their short name.

• Offline Marketing Materials: Google launched a new website that allows businesses to purchase offline marketing materials like stickers, posters and other items that are generated from GMB profile content.

Source: GMB Marketing Kit

Coming Soon: Google will be highlighting the top 5% of GMB profiles in a particular category as a “Local Favorite”. These businesses will earn both digital and physical badges of honor. This is Google’s way of recognizing brands who “consistently deliver a great experience for people”.

If these latest updates sound a little familiar, you’re not alone. Google seems to be taking inspiration from other similar applications. Welcome offers are a page straight out of Yelp’s playbook and we’ve all seen the favorite lists and business stickers from Yelp and TripAdvisor before. As for the short name searchability and following business features, that has social media written all over it. Google is clearly dedicated to becoming a consumer’s one and only source for business information.

How to Take Advantage of Google’s Latest GMB Updates

Google has made one thing clear with these most recent updates – the businesses who actively update and maintain their GMB profiles will be rewarded. Show you’re active on GMB by doing the following:

• Respond to all your reviews.
• Participate in Google Q&A.
• Utilize Google Posts to updates, deals, and events.
• Implement a Listing Management platform to stay on top of it all.

For multi-location brands or agencies working with many small businesses, maintaining multiple GMB profiles is impossible without the help of a listing management platform like Crush It Local. Crush it Local’s platform relentlessly monitors your local business listings across hundreds of directories and offers recommendations for optimization. With 25% of the Google Search Ranking Factors coming from GMB signals, keeping your GMB profile up-to-date is one of the biggest factors in a brand’s online visibility.

Want to see how your GMB profile compares? Try our Free Instant Brand Audit!

What’s New To Google My Business

Over the past few years, Google My Business has added multiple features to business listings. Many of these features are designed to help build engagement with customers.

GMB Customer Engagement Features:

• Short Names
• Follow a Business
• Reviews
• Google Posts
• Q&A
• Photo & Videos

Although these features help create seamless interactions between consumers and the business, they do have their pros and cons.

The Pros and Cons of GMB Features

Pros:

• Increases consumer engagement with the business.
• Allows businesses to reach customers through multiple touchpoints.
• With over 5.6 billion searches a day, Google has the largest reach.

Cons:

• User-generated content is a threat to brand consistency.
• Features are constantly being added and removed.
• Requires more work from brand’s to keep up with the features.

How User-Generated Content is Threatening Brand Consistency

Google officially launched its Local Guides program in 2015. This gamified user-generated contribution program was designed to get people more involved in Google Maps and help fill in some missing map information. Unfortunately, this program has come at a price for brands. User-generated content added to business listings is a threat to brand consistency.

How to Protect Brand Consistency and Build Customer Engagement

Respond to Reviews

Responding to reviews helps to stop rumors from spreading. The last thing you want is one bad experience ruining your entire reputation. By responding to reviews not only does it show you listen to your customers, but it also gives you a chance to right the wrong.

Google My Business Reviews Best Practices:

1. Respond as soon as possible.
   1. Most people expect a response within 24 hours.
2. Thank the customer for leaving feedback.
3. Take negative reviews offline.
   1. Offer a support email or phone number for people to reach out to.

Participate in Q&A

Participate in Q&A to prevent people from spreading misinformation. In the example, the Local Guide who is answering is sending someone to a competitor because they don’t know the answer. Get in front of this by answering questions on your listings from the business directly.

Google Q&A Best Practices:

1. Monitor and answer questions daily.
   1. Google will send the owner email alerts of new questions asked.
2. Flag inappropriate or wrong questions/answers.
   1. If they violate Google’s guidelines they’ll be removed.
3. Ask and answer your own questions.
   1. You can ask questions as the owner or in your personal account – up to you.
   2. Always answer the questions logged in as the owner.

Create Google Posts and Events

Google Posts are a great way to share content and events with people who are searching for your business. Introducing Google Posts into your GMB strategy is one of the easiest ways to attract new customers to your business.

Best Practices for Google Posts:

1. Posts only last 7-days so be sure to post continuously.
2. Events last until the event is over, take advantage by posting early.
3. Post content that inspires consumers to take action. We’ve seen posts with offers drive the most engagement.
   1. Use one of the 6 available CTA buttons:

• Book an Appointment
• Order Online
• Buy
• Learn More
• Sign Up
• Get Offer

Unfortunately, you are not yet able to bulk schedule posts for multiple locations over 10 through the Google API. However, expecting this to change soon and are always monitoring updates to Google’s API.

Keep Your Content Fresh

Along with Google Posts, you’ll want to make sure all your content on your listing is constantly being updated. Keeping your content fresh comes with more benefits than just driving engagement. Keeping your listing updated can earn you higher rankings by contributing to the 25% of how Google ranks a business is from GMB signals. When you post fresh content your followers will get updates bringing the listing to them even if they weren’t looking for it. Lastly, new content helps to push down the user-generated content. This is especially important for those unwanted photos and videos.

Best Practices for Keeping Your Content Fresh:

1. Post on a consistent basis.
   1. Not only will this keep the people who follow your profile updated but it can help improve rankings as well.
2. Don’t have time to create new content – recycle it.
   1. Repost photos that have fallen to the back of the album or repurpose social media content
3. Don’t forget to audit your listings and flag inappropriate or inaccurate photos or videos regularly.
   1. Don’t forget to check and see what users have added as you upload your own content.

Create and Share Your Google Short Name

Creating a short name makes it easy for people to find your Google business listing every time. Share it on your website, social media, and in-store. Using a short name is especially helpful for multi-location businesses or businesses with competitors who have similar names. Although we don’t suspect short names to have any SEO impact, it can’t hurt to claim and distribute yours.

Best Practices for Google Short Names:

1. Create a short name with your brand name followed by location. For Example: g.page/ChatmeterSanDiego
2. Keep your short name consistent with other social media names. For Example: Your Facebook Business Page Link
3. Claim your short name ASAP… even if you don’t plan to use it. You don’t want anyone to claim it before you can.

How to Build Engagement for Multi-Location Brands on Google My Business

Crush It Local’s Local Listing Management service helps brands to stay on top of all the latest GMB features no matter how many locations they have. We help monitor, remove, and suppress those unwanted user-edits so you can have peace of mind when it comes to your GMB listings.