For years, marketing and SEO professionals have urged business owners to set up a profile on Google My Business. After all, GMB is a completely free platform provided by Google, offering an easy way to highlight your company’s services, hours of operation, customer reviews, and more. (Studies show that more than half of consumers use Google My Business to verify a local company’s hours of operation, just one way in which GMB impacts consumer behavior.) Additionally, having a GMB listing has long been essential for local search visibility. In short, getting active on GMB has rightly been regarded as a no-brainer.
At the end of 2021, however, Google announced a shakeup: GMB has been renamed to Google Business Profile. And with the name change comes a series of behind-the-scenes tweaks. Most notably, business profile management has been brought out of the GMB app, and under the umbrellas of Google Search, Google Maps, and other relevant platforms.
Business owners may be wondering whether any of these changes really matter… and, whether launching a Google business profile is still a worthwhile undertaking. Here are a few quick comments from the Woland Web marketing team.
A Brief History
First, it may be helpful to position this name change in a broader historic context. You see, before Google’s business profiles were called Google My Business, they were called Google Places. Before that, this was all part of the ill-fated Google+ platform. Go back even further and you can trace Google Business Profile to Google Local.
The point is, while the name changes pretty often, Google has a longstanding commitment to helping businesses promote themselves across the network. And while it may be mildly annoying to deal with yet another rebranding, it remains in every business owner’s best interest to make full use of Google’s platform.
Practical Implications
As for the practical implications of this change, the first thing business owners should know is that they still have a lot of autonomy over how their company is portrayed on Google… but the way to modify your business profile has changed. Instead of using GMB, you can now handle all the back-end changes directly on Google Maps or Google Search.
A separate Business Profile Manager is coming, but this tool is exclusively for companies that need to manage profiles for multiple locations. Single-location companies don’t need to worry about Business Profile Manager.
In addition to the new name and the new ways to manage your business profile, Google has announced a few other new features. These include:
- You can now claim and verify your business directly from the Google Search page.
- Call History is launching in the U.S. and Canada, allowing business owners to keep track of phone calls they get from customers. (Worth noting: There was a 61 percent increase in calls from Google My Business between January and July of 2020.)
- Customers will now be able to message with companies directly from the search results page.
- Business owners can use Performance Planner to better regulate their Google Ads spend, and specifically to promote their local business profile.
The Bottom Line
So at the end of the day, why does any of this matter for business owners?
It matters because these Google business profiles, whatever they’re called, and no matter how many times they’re rebranded, are among the most essential factors for improving local search visibility. Most businesses see dozens of actions each month based on their Google profile, including a high volume of phone calls. And, it seems likely that Google will be rolling out a lot of new features for business owners that use this new platform. So, if you haven’t set up your free Google Business Profile account, now’s the time!
At Woland Web, we recommend taking full advantage of Google’s suite of SEO and business promotion tools… especially the free ones! With any questions about this transition from GMB to Google Business Profile, feel free to contact us directly.
