{"id":4154,"date":"2020-10-15T15:00:57","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T15:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpmudev.whitespark.ca\/gmb-study\/"},"modified":"2024-10-28T16:05:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T22:05:00","slug":"gmb-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/gmb-study\/","title":{"rendered":"GMB Feature Adoption &#038; Trends: What We Learned From Studying 800,000 Listings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We recently hosted our first <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/local-search-summit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Local Search Summit<\/a> and for the event we studied 800,000 Google My Business listings across 70 categories in 100 major cities in the U.S. and in Canada. In this study, we looked at four core features of Google My Business: <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"#posts\">Posts<\/a>, <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"#questions\">Questions &amp; Answers<\/a>, <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"#products\">Products<\/a>, and <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"#reviews\">Reviews<\/a>. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The purpose of this study is to understand Google My Business feature adoption and trends, to identify ways you can stand out and find the best opportunities for your business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We are sharing the full presentation from the event and <a href=\"#explorer\">access to all of the data to use for your own research and analysis<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Get Video Access to the Local Search Summit<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Get full access to our Local Search Summit content with our video bundle. Deepen your knowledge and learn new tactics and strategies to improve your rankings and conversions from local search. As bonus when you purchase the bundle you will also unlock all of the content from our 2020 event!<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having your business on Google My Business plays an important part in how users find your business online. <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/whitesparks-guide-to-optimizing-google-my-business\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">By optimizing your business profile<\/a>, you can both help customers find your business and convert more searchers into loyal customers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Key Takeaways From Our Study<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">96% of businesses are not using Google Posts.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">70% of businesses do not have Q&amp;A on their listings.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1,000&#8217;s of businesses with left questions from potential leads\/customers unanswered.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Only 49% of businesses have claimed their GMB listing.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unclaimed listings on average are 3X more likely to have no reviews or low ratings.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The majority of businesses have less than 10 reviews.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">62% of the businesses we studied have 0 to 10 reviews.<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Only 11% of businesses had more than 100 reviews.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Posts<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Posts are one of the newest features and biggest changes to GMB. They were released in beta in the spring of 2016. There are a few different types of Google Posts, including What\u2019s new, Events, Offers, and COVID-19 updates. You can <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-google-my-business-posts\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">learn everything you need to know about Google My Business Posts here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Study Findings<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In our study, we found that Google Post adoption is low. <\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Only 28% of businesses we studied had ever posted. The number of businesses actively publishing Google Posts at the time of study, was 7 times less &#8211; just 4% of businesses are making Google Posts a part of their ongoing strategy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With 96% of businesses not using the Google Posts feature, you can make your business can really stand out from the competition with regular, targeted Google Posts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Benefits of Google Posts<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to the value of Google Posts, we\u2019re talking about user engagement not ranking boost. Google Posts are valuable to businesses because when used effectively they\u2019re low-cost, low-commitment lead generators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Google Posts = Free Ad Space on Google\u00a0<\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Businesses need to stop thinking of Google Posts like social media posts and consider them as free ad space on Google! With Google Posts, you can feature your products or services, add multiple images including images with text content and even short videos to advertise your business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Google Posts are Low Cost Lead Generators\u00a0<\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What is one lead worth to your business? With that figure in mind, consider testing weekly Google Posts that promote your top service or product with UTM tracking so you can attribute any leads to Posts. You can even offer a special offer exclusively through Google Posts to track offline conversions. With a couple weeks of Posts under your belt, you\u2019ll be able to evaluate the cost of publishing the Posts against the value of one lead to determine if Google Posts are driving business and closing deals for you.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Google Posts Help Your Business Stand Out, Even if You\u2019re Not Ranking #1<\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Below, we compared two businesses in the local finder for the search term \u201cdrain cleaning Edmonton\u201d. On the left is the top ranking business, on the right is another business that ranked fourth for our query.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/GMB-Rank-vs-Conversion-Factors.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The top ranking business is getting major ranking benefits from our search term \u201cdrain cleaning\u201d being included in their business name \u201cAll About Drain Cleaning Ltd.\u201d When we look at the listing though, there\u2019s only one review, there\u2019s a warning message that Google isn\u2019t even sure about the location, it isn\u2019t claimed, and it\u2019s missing basic business information.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The business ranking #4 has over 600 reviews, a high star rating, it\u2019s owned and optimized and any searcher can see that this business cares &#8211; they answer questions, post information and promote with Posts (seen in the carousel titled \u201cRelated to your Search\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a consumer who is going to hire this service area business to come into your home, which business do you trust more and are more likely to call? A <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/everything-you-need-to-know-about-google-my-business-posts\/\">fully optimized listing with Google Posts<\/a> focused on the services your customers are searching for can help your business stand out against the competition!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Now let\u2019s look at the businesses that are most and least likely to use Google Posts.\u00a0<\/span><b>Most Likely to Publish Google Posts<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Locksmiths 58%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Medical Spas (50%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Criminal Defense Lawyers (47%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cosmetic Dentists (45%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Car Dealers (41%)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The above <\/span><\/em><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">categories had the highest percentage of businesses who had ever posted (includes businesses with at least one post since the feature was released) in our study.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On average only 10% of these businesses have active posts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your business is in one of these top categories, you need to know that top ranking competitors have been testing Google Posts and it\u2019s time you started to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Least Likely to Publish Google Posts<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Psychologists (12%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Banks (11%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Engineering Firms (9%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Financial Planners (8%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Architects (8%)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The above categories <\/span><\/em><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">had the lowest percentage of businesses who had ever posted (includes businesses with at least one post since the feature was released) in our study.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your business fits in one of the categories least likely to publish Google Posts, less than 1% of your competitors have active Posts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of these categories may have restrictions around promotional language, patient confidentiality, or just be in a strictly B2B market. That doesn\u2019t mean you can\u2019t use the Posts feature! Google Posts can be used to build trust (i.e. profile a staff member or highlight an award) and we always recommend using Posts to simply share a link to book an appointment or call your business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And remember only 4% of <\/span><b>all businesses studied <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are actively posting so the opportunity isn\u2019t only for these businesses, Google Posts are truly a competitive difference maker for <\/span><b>every business.\u00a0<\/b><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to Win with Google Posts\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Schedule one post a week for consistency (the What\u2019s New post type expires after 7 days).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Test everything to see what works for you! In our experience Offer Posts get a lot of engagement (you can set the duration of the post) and in some industries, we\u2019ve seen increased engagement on Posts that use GIFs or videos (instead of photos).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Focus on your top seller. For example, a dentist consistently promoting a high value service like Invisalign through Google Posts will see an excellent return on investment if they consistently promote with Posts and get even one lead a month.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Did you know that Whitespark can help you manage all of these GMB features plus spam fight for your business? Our Google My Business experts will help you <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/google-my-business-management-service\/\">convert searchers to customers through our monthly management service<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Questions &amp; Answers<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Released in August 2017, the Questions &amp; Answers feature allows businesses to engage with customers and offer frequently asked question content directly in the business profile.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This feature oddly isn\u2019t accessible from the GMB dashboard. As the business owner, you can access Q&amp;A from your business listing on your branded search results page. From here, you can answer questions as the business and post a frequently asked question and answer.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/QA-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can also upvote questions and answers. The question with the most upvotes will be the top question (and three upvotes will promote a question to the business profile). If there are multiple answers to a question, the answer with the most upvotes will be the top answer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google will *sometimes* alert the business owner to new Q&amp;A. It\u2019s best to use a <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/reputation-builder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tool that monitors Q&amp;A<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/QA-Features.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Study Findings<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In our study, we found that 30% of businesses have Q&amp;A on their business listing. There are two things to consider here:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not many businesses are taking advantage of this feature, but\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are thousands of businesses with questions asked by potential customers that have left them unanswered<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Importance of Questions &amp; Answers\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google My Business Q&amp;A is about managing your reputation, just like Google Reviews. Businesses need to keep in mind that <\/span><b>anyone<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> can ask a Question and <\/span><b>anyone <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">can answer that question. All Google Maps users can use the Questions &amp; Answers feature so it\u2019s critical to monitor and manage.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Manage-Your-Reputation.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><b>Don\u2019t let just anyone be your PR person<\/b><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not managing your Q&amp;A means you\u2019re letting other Google Maps users answer questions on behalf of your business. From the business listings we reviewed, user-provided answers often:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">conflict with one another, leading to confusion for your customers, or<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">tell the original poster to call you or visit your website (which of course they\u2019ve bypassed in GMB to post this question), or\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">as in this example, they recommend alternatives to your business.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-67649 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Dont-let-anyone-be-your-PR-person.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"948\" height=\"546\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stop losing customers to your competitors &#8211; manage your Q&amp;A. We found that these businesses were the most and least likely to use Questions &amp; Answers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Most Likely to Have Q&amp;A<\/b><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are some businesses that naturally lend themselves more to this feature, and those most likely to have Q&amp;A are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Restaurants (74%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Car Rental Agencies (66%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bakeries (65%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Veterinarians (60%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Furniture Stores (55%)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your business is in one of these top categories, make sure you check for user-generated questions and answers and add your top Q&amp;A. It\u2019s very likely you have questions that have not been managed and that means you\u2019re leaving customers annoyed and leaving money on the table.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Least Likely to Have Q&amp;A<\/b><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The businesses we found least likely to have Q&amp;A are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pediatricians (7%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Engineering Firms (6%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Accountants (6%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Financial Planners (3%)\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Architects (3%)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How to Win with Questions &amp; Answers\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Does your business have questions that come up more often at certain times of the year? Update your top Q&amp;A seasonally with any seasonal, holiday, or sales event related questions. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Get your seasonal promotions, special hours, or holiday policies in front of customers by \u201cswapping\u201d your most upvoted question to the best question for right now.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Three or more upvotes on a question will bump that question to the business profile. (h\/t <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GregGifford\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Greg Gifford<\/a>).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can add your frequently asked questions and answers to Q&amp;A. If you already have this information on your website, or in training materials, you should repurpose it here.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Consider using this space to answer top objections customers have with completing a transaction with your business. <\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/QA-Update-Seasonally.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/QA-Answer-top-objections.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Products<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/22\/google-my-business-new-features-add-product-collection-branded-search-insights\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Products rolled out in October 2018 <\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and enables businesses to post their inventory directly on GMB, creating an online catalog for customers to browse, complete with descriptions, pricing and link options.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Products have a high position in the business profile on the branded results page &#8211; above Q&amp;A, reviews and Posts &#8211; and generally above the fold. If you\u2019re a service-based business, you can currently use this feature to promote services.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Products allow you to showcase your Products and Services like you have in the past with the Photo feature but now you can categorize, add titles and descriptions and UTM tagged links with call to action options. The business phone number is displayed in the top right hand on desktop and mobile as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Much like Posts, you can think of Products as free ad listing space in your business profile, and above the fold to boot.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Products.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Study Findings<\/h3>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In our study, we found that on average, only 4% of businesses have Products listed on their GMB listing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the feature is not available to all businesses (even sometimes within the same category), which Google is aware of but it seems there\u2019s no solution in sight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Businesses Most Likely to Add Products<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Florists (16%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Car Dealers (14%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Furniture Stores (11%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Jewelry Stores (10%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Medical Spas (10%)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><b>Business Least Likely to Add Products<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pretty much every other category.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every category we studied (that had the Products feature available) had at least one businesses using this feature.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>How to Get the Most out of Products<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the Products feature is available to you &#8211; use it! This section is very visual and in a high position in the business profile.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If your business has products, list them with a link to purchase online or information about that product and instructions on how to pick up in store. <\/span><\/li>\n<li>If your business offers services &#8211; whether you\u2019re a dentist, lawyer, contractor or realtor &#8211; list your services as products and link to the corresponding service page on your site.<\/li>\n<li>Always include a link and use <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/wlss-day-1\/#utm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">UTM tagging to track clicks<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Order your Products so that your best sellers show at the top.<\/li>\n<li>Use Product categories &#8211; these show up below your top Products.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Product-for-Service-Based-Businesses.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Products-UTM-Tracking.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Reviews<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google Reviews are a cornerstone and one of the most well-known features of GMB. <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/2020-local-search-ranking-factors-presentation\/\">Reviews are a local ranking factor<\/a> for businesses in Google Maps, the local finder and the coveted map pack on Search results pages.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are some new features that have rolled out over the past year, <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/blog\/google-review-attributes-monitoring\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">including Review Attributes (spring 2020)<\/a> and Place Topics (July 2019). <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some businesses even have the new feature below, which asks the reviewer questions including what service they&#8217;re rating.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Reviesw-Places-Topics.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Review-Attributes-2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>Study Findings<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In our data set, only 49% of businesses are claimed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Unclaimed listings are on average 3x more likely to have no reviews or low ratings. <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If for no other reason than this, it is vital that businesses claim their business profile on Google My Business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We did see some trends and outliers when studying the connection between listing ownership and reviews and ratings.<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Reviews-claimed-and-unclaimed-listings-0-3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Google <a href=\"https:\/\/support.google.com\/business\/answer\/3038177?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">defines<\/a> an individual practitioner as \u201ca public-facing professional, typically with their own customer base.\u201d We found that many professionals that fit this classification were much more at risk of having no to low reviews associated with not claiming their GMB listing.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Accountants, chiropractors, dentists, financial planners, lawyers and optometrists were about 6x more likely to have no to low reviews if the listing was unclaimed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For these professionals, a simple and effective review strategy is paramount. Practitioner listings should be claimed and owned by that individual, not their practice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While claimed listings are generally less likely to have no reviews or low ratings, the restaurants &amp; coffee shop categories are exceptions. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These businesses are very unlikely to have 0-3 star ratings (less than 4% of listings we studied) and there\u2019s virtually no difference (a single percentage point) between claimed and unclaimed listings&#8217; ratings. This is likely because in American &amp; Canadian culture (the two countries in the study), leaving reviews is a common part of the dine-out experience.<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Google-Reviews.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We know that in general, consumers write reviews when they\u2019re very satisfied or very unsatisfied.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">43% of businesses have ratings over 4.5 stars<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">33% of businesses have ratings under 3 stars<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the majority of businesses have less than 10 reviews. 62% of the businesses we studied have 0 to 10 reviews, only 11% had more than 100 reviews.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are some businesses that are excelling at accumulating reviews, including: Coffee Shops, Bakeries, Car Dealers, Electronics Stores and Restaurants. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In fact, Restaurants run opposite to the trend of all businesses for average review count &#8211; as we\u2019ve already explored, very few have low review counts and 77% have over 100 reviews.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Average-Review-Count.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Average-Review-Count-vs-Restaurants.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><b>Who\u2019s winning with reviews?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fewest Low Reviews<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bakeries (10%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coffee Shops (6%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Restaurants (2%)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We measured which businesses are best at collecting reviews as those least likely to have no reviews. Very few locksmiths, day spas, bakeries and coffee shops have no reviews and only 2% of restaurants studied did not have at least one review.<\/p>\n<p><b>Who\u2019s losing with reviews?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Financial Planners (83%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Psychologists (69%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Accountants (62%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Architects (60%)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Construction companies (55%)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Best Practices for Google Reviews<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Simply start by claiming your listing and monitoring your reputation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Respond to every review (both positive and negative).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Always ask every customer for a review &#8211; the more you ask, the more you&#8217;ll get.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4>Try our favourite review request strategy &#8211; it works!<\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ask in-person\/over the phone after closing the sale<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Give the customer a review request handout with a simple link and clear instructions<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Send a follow up email thanking them for their business, again with the simple link to review<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to winning at reviews, you can keep it simple and be successful. We recommend that after personally asking clients to leave you a review, share a review request card with a link and QR code for your Google review page. S<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">how your client that all they have to do is aim their smartphone camera at the QR code to open the page to review your business. Make it as easy as possible for clients &#8211; with fewer barriers, they&#8217;re more likely to follow through with a review. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For our review links, we like to use the GMB short name (from the GMB Info section of the dashboard), just add \/review to your g.page\/shortname link.<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/GMB-leave-us-a-review-card.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h4>Success Stories<\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This HVAC business had 64 reviews and a 4.4 star rating in January 2019. A year later in January 2020, they had increased their star rating to 4.7 stars but only had gained 13 reviews over an entire year. That month they implemented our review strategy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In just one month, their review count jumped up by 27 to 104 reviews. A few months later, t<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">heir review count is now over 200 and they have maintained their 4.7-star rating.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Winning-Review-Strategey.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reviews are a conversion tool and sometimes they tell you that themselves! The review below tells us that the client read all the positive reviews and <strong>that\u2019s why<\/strong> they chose this business.\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Reviews-are-a-conversion-tool.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Use All The Data From Our GMB Study<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our study data is publicly available to use for your own business through our <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/gmb-explorer\/\"><strong>GMB Explorer tool<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/emojipedia.org\/party-popper\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#x1f389;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We realized there were many applications for this data if it could be searched and segmented, including <strong>Competitive Analysis<\/strong>, <strong>Prospecting for Clients<\/strong> and<strong> Spam Fighting<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Looking to analyze your competitors? You can sort the data to see which of your competitors are killing it. You can sort by businesses showing ads, or businesses that meet a review threshold for example and more!\u00a0<\/span><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/GMB-Explorer-Tool.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"\" height=\"\" \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Are you surprised by the low adoptions of features in Google My Business? If you aren&#8217;t already in the know of what your top local competitors are doing in GMB, go do some research, and then put a plan in place to start dominating in local search. <a href=\"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/google-my-business-management-service\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">If you need any help with your strategy and management, we have an amazing team of experts that you can collaborate with to meet your business goals<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We recently hosted our first Local Search Summit and for the event we studied 800,000 Google My Business listings across 70 categories in 100 major cities in the U.S. and in Canada. In this study, we looked at four core features of Google My Business: Posts, Questions &amp; Answers, Products, and Reviews. The purpose of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"We\u2019ve been hearing for years that clicks from local search results to business websites are dropping off: Google is the new homepage. But are businesses listening? We studied the top Google My Business listings across 70 categories in 100 major cities in the United States and Canada to understand new feature adoption and identify key trends.","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"classification":[],"class_list":["post-4154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4154"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5102,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4154\/revisions\/5102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4154"},{"taxonomy":"classification","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whitespark.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/classification?post=4154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}