Google Business Is Your Bestie

Don’t risk your friendship — or your reputation with customers — by ignoring it!

By Andi Lucas

*NOTE: To protect the innocent and spare any embarrassment, business names have been changed. But I really, REALLY wish I could tell you the names so that these businesses never repeat these mistakes!

Earlier this summer, my husband and I were super excited to have brunch at Just Brunch,* a cute café with a scratch kitchen in a neighboring town. Before leaving the house, I checked Google, and Just Brunch’s business profile said it was open. To be safe, just because you never know, I checked the website, which confirmed the business hours. And to be extra precautious, I called Just Brunch, and the outgoing voicemail, too, confirmed the hours.

We were in the car and on our way, our bellies rumbling and the hangries about to set in. Twenty minutes later, we were close. We took a few spins around the block, and we found parking. Yay! My stomach was full-on growling at this point.

We made our way to the front door of Just Brunch, my mouth watering and my arm extended to pull on the handle. The door didn’t budge, and the lights were off. And then I saw it. A hand-written note taped to the inside of the door:

“Closed due to Heat Wave! Unfair to Cooks! Come back tomorrow!”

Now, we’ve had a few unbelievably hot summers in Seattle over the past few years, and I would never want anyone to work in a sweltering kitchen without air conditioning when it’s 100 degrees outside. In fact, I was proud of Just Brunch for respecting and valuing its employees enough to shut the doors for the day.

What bothered me was that Just Brunch didn’t communicate with customers properly. And with Google Business Profiles, communicating with customers is so easy! Certainly easier than driving to the restaurant, writing a note, and taping it on the door. Even easier than changing the outgoing voicemail greeting and updating the website.

As you might imagine, I was now beyond ravenous; I was really disappointed; and I was super pissed, given the fact that I had checked three spots to confirm the hours!

The owner or a designated staff member could have quickly logged into Google Maps on a computer or a phone, gone to the Business Profile, clicked “Edit Profile,” clicked “Hours, and chose to add “Special Hours.” It actually took me longer to type out these instructions than it did to add temporary hours to one of the listings I manage!

As a web designer, please believe that I’m not suggesting a website isn’t important! Of course a website is important! So is an updated outgoing voicemail greeting. However, what I am emphatically pointing out is that Google Business is perhaps the absolute most critical spot for quickly and effectively communicating with customers, especially for physical locations with designated hours.

When people are looking for your restaurant, dry cleaner, florist, dog walking service — whatever your business is, they are going to Google first. (Okay, about 86% of people, according to the March 2023 Statista report on search engine market share. The rest are using Bing, Yahoo!, and DuckDuckGo.)

When they directly search for your business on Google, your Business Profile should be at the top of the search results. And right there, in black and white, it states your hours on that day — with a red “Closed” or a green “Open” note. If you know you’re going to be closed for Thanksgiving and closing early on Christmas Eve, make those adjustments right now so you won’t need to think about it while you’re eating turkey or wrapping presents.

Allow me to share a few other disappointing experiences when businesses didn’t update their Google Business Profiles:

• One of my favorite wineries, Redhead Winez,* has a tasting room in Woodinville, Wash. — along with about 120 others. If you’ve never been to Woodinville, it’s amazing and worth a trip. Napa, shmapa. Anywhooo, we were trying to coordinate picking up wines from one location, tasting at another, and dinner at another. I relied on Google to show me the hours, and Redhead Winez was set to close at 6 pm. We built the schedule around that and broke a few traffic laws trying to get there. As we were rushing through our tasting, the friendly pourer asked why we were in such a hurry.  We looked at the time (5:45 pm) and said that we knew we only had 15 more minutes. “Oh, we close at 7 pm in the summer.” Grrr…
• A framing shop near me pulled the same kind of stunt as Just Brunch, leaving a note on the door, which I found when I physically went to the store because Google Business hours and the website said it was open.
• A really fantastic restaurant on the water was listed as open. I’d had a very long day, and it was exactly what I needed — a few snacks, a glass of wine, and watching the sunset. Battled traffic to get there, only to find that they were closed for a private event.

What to Update on Your Google Business Profile

Okay, so you’ve heard a handful of stories from me about how frustrating it was to think I was able to go somewhere and then learn that I couldn’t. Yes, these are First World problems; however, they are problems for the business owners as well.

For just that reason, here are the three quick and easy tips I recommend (insist?) that you check and update regularly for your Google Business Profile:

1. Hours. Please verify that your regular hours are correct. Then, add Special Hours for all holidays for the rest of the year — sometimes, that means confirming that you are “open as usual” on a holiday. Finally, add Special Hours any time your business is closed unexpectedly and/or one-time open and close times that are different than your usual hours.

Pro Tip: One of our clients took an 8-week sabbatical, so we marked her office as “Temporarily Closed” and then posted an Update (see #3 below) to highlight when she would be back. If you’ll be closed for an extended period of time, we recommend doing the same.

2. Industry. Check that your Primary Category is, in fact, what your business mainly does. (This also helps with your organic rankings on Google.) For example, if your business is a bakery, make sure your Primary Category says “bakery” — not “restaurant” or “catering.” Then, add Other Categories when they are appropriate. And if you have Products and/or Services, add those too! Check all of these regularly, as Google is always adding new category and service options that could be more specific to your business.

Example: A new client came to Hummingbird Marketing Services because her preschool/daycare Business Profile wasn’t appearing in relevant search results. Whoops — her Primary Category was listed as “Educational Center.” A quick change helped her big time!

3. Updates. The “Add Update” section is a great place to highlight a sale, special event, new product, latest blog entry, new team members, etc. Basically, anything that you would post on Facebook and/or Instagram, you can post as an update. These show up within your listing and show customers more of your personality and voice.

Pro Tip: When an Update is no longer valid, delete it. This is important for sales that have ended or events that have passed. Why add possible confusion for your customers?

I know that it can be overwhelming as a business owner, trying to manage all of the things in all of the places, especially when it feels like another new platform is launching all the time. (No, X is not new; it’s just Twitter.) In those times of overwhelm and stress, I encourage you to think like a potential customer and provide them with all of the pertinent information needed to become a lifelong customer. And remember, if you need help claiming your Google Business Profile, updating it, or just giving it a quick audit to be sure it’s optimized, my team and I are here for you. Send us an email or schedule an initial consultation with me to get started. It could be the most impactful 30 minutes of your life!