Google gave business locations an additional opportunity to enhance their local visibility with an update to ‘Offers,’ a type of Google Post, recently. The change gives GMB offers panel more dedicated space within the local panel and allows businesses to load up to 10 Offers in the carousel.
“The new layout introduces a dedicated space for business owners to feature their most recent offers—making a quick decision for their potential customers even easier,” GMB Senior Product Manager Amir Fish wrote in the feature announcement.
Local managers and franchisees can use the expanded space to offer a variety of Offers from the brand and the local store. Offers can include a description of the promotion, a coupon code, an image, and start and end dates.
With this update, Google says, they want to make it easier for local stores to attract customers, and for local consumers to make decisions about where to go.
Inside each of your locations’ GMB dashboards, you can create Google Posts categorized as:
- What’s New (the standard Google Post format)
- Events
- Offers
- Products
Each post format gives you the opportunity to include relevant, engaging and eye-catching information inside the local panel. Google aims to provide consumers and searchers the best answer for each query, often without their even having to click on a search result.
GMB is therefore a critical component of your local marketing strategy. The various types of information you include here can increase your visibility on those key non-branded searches. For example, adding ‘Product’ posts allows you to tell Google more about the products and services you offer, which helps the search engine see the relevance between your brand and local non-branded queries.
This is why website analytics alone simply won’t cut it anymore. Brands with hundreds or thousands of locations need GMB Insights incorporated into one comprehensive Local Reporting dashboard, to capture those interactions and conversions happening across the local search ecosystem.
Takeaways:
- Use a variety of Google Post formats to showcase events, products and services, offers and more from each location.
- Support local owners and managers with a Google Posts strategy in which they’ll be able to post regularly—most Google Posts display for just 7 days in the business panel.
- Get ahead of the game. See how recent changes and improvements to GMB are shaping local marketing for enterprise brands in this recent blog post.
- See all recent Google My Business updates and feature launches in this timeline.
Looking for information specific to your industry? Browse this selection of local marketing case studies in finance, restaurants and hospitality, retail, healthcare, and more, all involving multi-location brands like yours. See how enterprise and global brands are engaging and converting local consumers the world over.
Author Bio:
Krystal Taing is a Google My Business Gold Product Expert with extensive knowledge and expertise in local marketing and local search.
