Customers frequently turn to your Google My Business listing for up-to-date information about the status of your businesses. Google recently announced some limited GMB functionality during the coronavirus crisis.
There’s no denying that these are hard times for local businesses all over the country. During this time, EZlocal is committed to making sure our customers are kept updated on any developments affecting local SEO.
What’s New and How It Affects EZlocal Customers
We've organized the most up-to-date Google My Business features, tips, and best practices during this crisis you can leverage to communicate changes with your customers. Please reach out to us with any questions or updates. EZlocal is ready to assist!
Temporary COVID-19 Updates in Google My Business:
“Takeout/delivery available” in business names
Restaurants, breweries, and grocery stores are now allowed to add "Delivery Available" or "Take Away" to their business name. Google is usually pretty strict when it comes to updating the business name field, but it appears to have loosened its guidelines.
Businesses can mark their listings as "temporarily closed"
You can confirm that your business is temporarily closed and then reopen it when you are fully operational again. As an alternative, you can also use the Special Hours feature to indicate that your business is closed specific days.
Critical health-related businesses get priority
The Google My Business support team is operating with limited staff, so many business edits that require review will notice a lag. Top priorities for business edits go to open and closed updates, special hours, business descriptions, and attributes.
Review functionality temporarily disabled
Google temporarily disabled new local reviews as well as the ability to write review responses. We recommend not asking for reviews until Google switches this back. You should pause any of your Customer Voice automated emails going out to customers asking for reviews on Google until this feature is available again.
Questions & Answers temporarily removed
Any new and any previously added Q&A's from business owners and users are no longer published on the Google My Business profile.
Read Google's full announcement on the updated Google My Business features.
Resources to help your small business manage through uncertainty
