Google My Business Q&A: What you may be missing

Google has been releasing more and more features on Google My Business (GMB). Additions like posts, photos, videos, booking, business descriptions, reviews and more make optimizing your Google My Business listing a must for local business or digital marketing agency managing local search strategies.

Staying on top of all the updates needed to keep a Google My Business listing current and optimized can be daunting — especially if you have multiple locations or are working with more than one business.

One GMB feature often overlooked is the questions and answers (Q&A) feature. Just like Google My Business reviews, Q&As are essentially crowdsourced by people — real people (potential customers) who ask questions with the expectation the business will answer their questions.

However, many businesses are not aware this review feature even exists! So the questions often go unanswered by the business, or the questions are answered by everyday people who often give incorrect answers or less-than-helpful ones.

This can lead to disastrous and embarrassing results for a business.

Look at this local movie theater as an example. They currently have 48 questions:

Of the 48 questions asked, not one of them was answered by the theater. Not one. In fact, most were answered by “Local Guides” or random people, and the answers were typically less than helpful:

Is this embarrassing for the theater? You bet! Heck, it’s even embarrassing for the people that answered the question in this case.

As a business owner or digital marketing agency that manages GMB listings for clients, how can you stay on top of Google My Business Q&As and use them to market and promote your business for the good,  instead of potentially tarnishing your brand?

First, let’s define what Google My Business Q&As are and then discuss ho…

[Read the full article on Search Engine Land.]

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.

About The Author

Sherry Bonelli

Sherry Bonelli has 19 years of digital marketing experience. She specializes in SEO, Reputation Marketing, Social Media, Content Marketing, Retargeting and Display Advertising and other integrated digital marketing strategies that help make local and national businesses successful online. She LOVES combining digital strategies to get results! Sherry holds a Master of Internet Marketing and is a frequent speaker at industry events and webinars. She is also a contributing guest columnist on leading digital marketing websites. As a SCORE mentor for the SCORE East Central Iowa chapter, she enjoys volunteering her time to help small- to medium-sized business with their digital marketing strategies. Sherry is the owner of early bird digital marketing, a digital marketing agency that helps businesses get found on the Internet. She also serves as BrightLocal's local search evangelist.