What Will You Do If Google My Business Does Not Understand Your Business?

Google My Business (GMB) is the lifeblood of most local organizations that want to be found online:

 

  According to the most recent Moz Local Search Ranking Factors report, your GMB page is the biggest local ranking factor. It also functions as a website now, with rich content, visuals and customer ratings/reviews that make it possible for people to learn more about you without leaving Google’s search results. At the same time, Google My Business is not a perfect service.

It often struggles with businesses that don’t fall into the two most common business types: storefronts where customers come to a permanent business location and service area businesses, where the business comes to the customer.

A common case in point: pop-up shops, which are growing in number. Pop-up shops have taken hold for several reasons. They often provide customers surprise-and-delight experiences that are not always easy to pull off in traditional brick-and-mortar stores. They make it possible for businesses to sell products and services without needing to pay expensive operational costs associated with running a permanent, brick-and-mortar store. Because they are mobile by nature, businesses can customize products literally to appeal to specific neighborhoods. Pop-up stores are legitimate businesses, and yet Google has no easy way to help you find them.

There are a couple of issues that prevent Google from being able to provide an accurate GMB page:

    The first has to do with claiming the listing. For most business types, Google needs to send the business a postcard with a pin number on it to verify that the business exists at a location. But pop-up stores often lack a permanent location for Google to send the cards and may only be at a location for a week or less, not giving enough time for the postcard to even reach the temporary address.

    The second issue also has to do with verification but is specific to how a pop-up store manages a listing. For instance, what happens if you create a GMB listing and then move from one location to another? Does that old location get marked as permanently closed? If so, the classification implies the business is out of business instead of moved. Again, the postcard verification as the primary means of validating a business causes trouble here.

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