What's new in Google's local SEO for this year

[tongfkymm44]

Your business hours are a local SEO ranking factor
We already mentioned this in another post, but it is worth remembering. Your business hours are a ranking factor . Several SEO experts have confirmed that “businesses that are closed (their hours are listed as “closed”) disappear from local searches.”



New attributes for different businesses with physical headquarters
Many of them are only seen in certain markets (the US), but they could spread healthtrax corporate email database to the rest of the world. To summarize, we can mention the following:

Identity or belonging attributes. We can now add information if the establishment is run by a person with a specific social characteristic. For example, disabled, black, veterans…
Small Business Attribute. This attribute is very interesting, although for now it is only available in the US. As long as the company is not a franchise and has revenues of less than 10 million dollars, it can display this badge. It is very interesting for all those users who prefer to buy from small businesses.
example small business attribute

Many of them are only seen in certain markets (the US), but they could spread to the rest of the world. To summarize, we can mention the following:

Gym and sports center add-on attributes. Much like the hotel add-on information, we will have options to include certain facilities in sports centers. For example, sauna, swimming pool…
Possibility of chat in the Company Profile also in the desktop version
This option has only been seen in the US so far, but it will probably also land in Europe.

It involves using third-party tools and allows you to display the option to chat with a salesperson.

Messages, which were introduced in 2022, are one of the great advances that what we now know as Business Profile and what was previously Google My Business has had.

Improve your SEO!
This product, called Google Business Messages , is not available to all companies and in fact, to be able to have it you have to be really fast in responding to users.



You have to respond within 24 hours and you have a 30-day window to speak to the customer.

This option may soon be available in a desktop version as well.

Something very interesting is also that you can add FAQs to this messaging function so that you can automate the response to questions that tend to be repeated quite a bit.

The user will be able to filter based on the type of diet they follow and other options.
This change was found by a user of X (twitter). Below is the tweet. It is about the possibility of filtering restaurant searches by the type of diet you follow.



As for preferences, you'll also start to see icons showing whether restaurants have vegetarian options.

Websites made with the Company Profile will begin to disappear
This announcement caught many by surprise but it seems to be already underway.

The official announcement states: “Websites created with Google Business Profiles are basic websites that are based on the information in your Business Profile. In March 2024, these websites will no longer be available and customers who visit your site will be redirected to your Business Profile. The redirect will work until June 10, 2024.”