Q&A

Here's how to remove a duplicate point of sale in your Google My Business account and how to report them from Google Maps:

From your Google My Business account

The indication "Duplicate Institution" is mentioned when the listing you want to add already exists in your account. If "Authorization required" is displayed, you must request ownership of the relevant record.

How to delete a local listing:

Sign in to Google My Business
Click on "Duplicate Locations" in "Account Summary"
Go to the sign to delete and click on "Delete this record" / Or check the box of each store to delete, select the three-point menu and select "Delete"

Attention :
Be careful not to delete listings that have already been validated.

From Google Maps

Open Google Maps
Find the establishment and suggest a modification
Select "This place is permanently closed or never existed" and the "Duplicate" pattern, then send.

Creating a group of locations is the best way to properly manage all of your Google My Business listings. A group of points of sale can be shared with your partners (colleagues, solutions, agencies, ...). On the other hand, if you want to distinguish subsets of establishments (brands, catchment areas, ...) you can create several groups of outlets.

To publish and validate your locations in bulk (in one operation), you need to import (xls, csv, ...) into your Google My Business account.

Warning :
Use a business email address provided by Google to manage your Google My Business account.

It is possible to download statistics from several establishments at once by exporting. Three reports are available: statistics on the discovery of your establishments, your photos and your phone calls.

Procedure :

Sign in to Google My Business
Check the points of sale that interest you
Activate the menu above the list of your establishments and select "Download Statistics".
Select one of the three reports from the "Local Reports" screen that opens
Specify the desired time period in the following screen and download the report

Warning :
For non-validated records, statistics are not available.

With exceptions, you must indicate your standard business hours in the dedicated section of your My Business listing. In other words, it means during the hours which staff are present to accompany and serve customers.

Example of exception: service stations where it is advisable to indicate the opening hours of the pumps. See the "Multiple Schedules" chapter of Google My Business Support for instructions on how to do this in specific cases across different industries.

For your "secondary" schedules, one solution is to use the Post feature to highlight them regularly or continuously in the news feed of the form.

Warning:
Do not indicate schedules in the name of the local form or you will see it blocked.

Procedure to follow:

Log in to Google on the account you want to use to manage your business.
Enter the name or address of your business, then select it from the search results. A dialog box indicating part of the email address used for the validation of the business listing may appear. If you manage this email address, log in to this account in order to access the business listing for your establishment.
Fill in the form. The current owner of the business listing may need to contact you to find out more about you. You will therefore not be able to send your request without sharing your contact details with it.
Google My Business will send an email to the current owner of the business listing asking them to contact you, and you’ll receive a confirmation email. Wait 7 days before the current owner of the listing responds to your request. If he has not contacted you after this period, you can validate your affiliation to the establishment in order to access the content that interests you.

Procedure to follow:

Connect to Google My Business.
In the menu, click on info → Under “Close or delete this file” → Click on mark the establishment as closed permanently
Click “ok” in the dialog box
In info → under “Close or delete this file”, delete the record
Review the information on the page that appears → then click delete account

NB: The business listing will however remain visible on Google but will be “free of rights”.

It is recommended that you mark your business listing page as permanently closed rather than deleting it. Why? Because this will allow users doing the search to find your establishment and realize that it is permanently closed.

An establishment marked as closed on Google will appear less and less over time in Google searches and on Google Maps, in favor of other pages found with the same keywords. Ultimately, the business listings will be automatically deleted.

Recently, Google has posted this rate in the home section of each Google My Business listing. Completing your listing will improve your raking in local searches and present a complete profile to users.

When you do not specify your exceptional hours, a note in orange is added to the local business listing of your establishment. This means that the owner has not validated his hours during public holidays.

In addition, if the mentioning is green, it is because you mentioned this change on the business listing. The consumer can go serenely to your point of sale, and this will also lead to better referencing because your information will be considered reliable and qualitative by Google.

Companies with photos on their Google My Business listing receive an average of 42% more directions from Google Maps and 35% more clicks on their websites.

The cover photo and logo are the most important elements for the user because they appear in the foreground of your business listing.

Then, you can add additional photos to make your listing more descriptive and attractive (inside or outside of your establishment, your flagship products, your team or even your offer). It’s best to do this across all of your business listings on Google my Business. By giving overall consistency to your pages, you strengthen your image and improve your local SEO.

Since 2017, you can take advantage of the new Google Posts feature of Google My Business for free.

Google Posts appear directly on your business listing in the Google search results. So you can present your new products, flagship products, events or promotions.

For this content, choose a catchy title, short text, neat visuals and an appropriate call to action. The publications will be visible for the duration that you have previously defined except for events which do not expire once the date of the event has been reached.

Managing your e-reputation is one of the pillars of customer relations. This allows you to create a relationship of trust and retain your customers. Google attaches great importance to it in terms of 3 elements :

Local reviews can be filtered by star rating.
The number of reviews is displayed.
The average grade is displayed.

Our advices :

Try to respond to all reviews, this will encourage other local customers to speak up.
Be reactive, customers are attentive to your response time. A delay of 5 to 7 days maximum is advised.
Apply the "tone of voice", the communication tone defined in your company. Do you use formal or familiar language, for example.
Avoid copying and pasting, opt for a personalized response.

In case any review is breaking the rules, comments and photos can be reported to the moderation teams who will remove them after evaluation.

Learn more : how to manage Google reviews

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