Speculations over monetization of GMB Listings
Impacts of GMB monetization on your business
What does monetizing Google My Business mean to you?
An overview
Google may monetize Google My Business Listings
As per the survey sent by Google, it can be concluded that Google might be looking forward to monetize some of the Google My Business features. Go through the post as we go through the proposed features and the GMB subscriptions and what does going for GMB ‘Premium’ means to your business. One of the most debated topics for now is the monetization of the local business channel of and by Google. As for now, Google is not compromising with any of the organic search results but do watch the space where it offers paid adverts. Speculations say that Google are allowing Group On Ads to appear within your Google My Business listing.
For those who do not know, Google My Business is widely used to list businesses and claim their ownership on the Google Map moreover to control their listing. Showcasing your business over the Google My Business means, you can showcase your business working hours, contact information including the availability over different channels, business owner information, photos and videos related to the business and other useful information for the customers.
Impacts of monetization of Google My Business on your business
Firstly, if you are a small business which is locally targeted for customer centric business than this news might be a potentially heartbreaking for you since the pricing on the survey ranges from $25 to $75 a month. Being a small business you might not possess such stable financial structure for spending such amount over the monetization of your Google My Business listing. For a larger multinational business, these prices would cause a little or no effect at all but for a small business, every penny counts.
What does monetizing Google My Business mean to you?
Further explained are some of the key features that Google is offering in return of the monetization of the Google My Business listings to some extent.
Pay Google to remove your Competitor adverts from your listing : In simple terms, it means that Google will hold your competitors ads on your business listing and if you want to get it removed, you have to get the subscription.
“Book button” on profile to request a slot or confirm booking : In this feature, you get an option to go for a “Book” button on your Google My Business listing. This Book button will enable Google to show your customers your business availability for a particular time frame. It means the customers can confirm a booking with your business or request for a timeslot instantly.
Earlier GMB had the ‘appointment’ button for integrating with the booking systems and also had an entire dedicated page for reservation booking partners. With ‘Book’ button, here comes the bad news for the earlier booking providers with whose help you could manage appointments and things.Promote specific deal or offer on your Business profile : It can be only speculated for now that if Google is considering monetizing the features for creating offers where you can post short description for services, products and offers. Since at this point, businesses are able to use these features for free and after the monetization will be implemented, businesses would have to pay for being placed above others on the searches.
Access the Call Recordings and call reports from GMB page : Larger business organizations are using such tactics to effectively track on their marketing teams and entire its work process. Smaller businesses may also benefit their business with integrating these features with their Analytics and Search Console and keep an eye over the call reports and recordings for the calls from Google My Business page. Such features will enhance your ability to evaluate the quality and the volume of the traffic from the Google My Business page.
Automation in message responding service : This feature will allow you to create messages so that Google can respond to your customers on their reviews on your behalf. Here, now this feature could come handy if you are not willing to reply directly to each and every review personally but this automated response will be subhuman in nature. Currently you are able to respond directly to your customer reviews, which we feel is the better way to go.
Better placement in Google search results : One of the most distressing from the list, upon monetization it will nearly change Google’s relevance in the search engine market. After the monetization, rather than providing quality of results it will be displaying the highest paid search results. As Google Ads have been practicing for quite some time, now businesses will be paying to be at the top of searches in GMB. Instead of ranking with the use of quality content, well designed website, etc. business brands will now easily rank with the help of money.
Compete with similar businesses with Google at once : Whenever a customer messages a similar services based business as of yours, Google will also show your business to the customer so that they can assess your business too. This feature will generate more and more leads via referral system from the Google My Business listings.
Also the case may be reverse, in case the customer might be messaging our business but our competitors business is also suggested by Google to the customer. Here the situation kind of equalizes for both of us if we are having similar subscription.Google verified reviews and background checks : Google will display your verified trade licenses on your Business profile as per speculations in this feature. Google also executes background check on your business in order to build trustworthy relationship with your customers.
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GMB Monetization: Overview
As explained earlier, there are lot of factors that Google might consider after conducting the survey globally on the subscription and pricing offered for the Google My Business listing. From a business owner’s point of view, if the speculations of monetization of Google My Business ‘Premium’ come true with the useful features at a certain price which small businesses could afford than it might be a real deal for them.
What if Google decides to implement this over all the businesses? Every digital marketer; used to a competitive and open marketplace gets affected because monetizing the Google My Business listings means like you are straight away selling your services at cheaper cost than any other with no concern to the prices. Local business is the next new major source of revenue as for Google as the speculation tell us. If Google decides to offer the features at aggressively higher prices, the businesses might rebel and this could lead to the comeback point for the Bing.
