The Yext Guide

to Google
Business Profiles
 With over 8 billion searches made by consumers In it you’ll learn:
every day, Google is a fundamental part of
1. How to claim your business on Google
most internet users’ search journeys. Google
also operates Google Maps, one of the most 2. Everything you need to know about the Google
popular local search and mapping apps. Business Profile API

3. Why managing your Google listings with Yext is

For businesses increasingly dependent on digital
a winning combination
channels, the accuracy of their facts on Google can
often mean the difference between thriving and
Yext is the global industry leader in Local Listings
struggling. Since 2014, Google has provided a manual
Management, as voted by G2 for seven consecutive
means through which brands can manage the facts
quarters. We’re here to help with insights and best
about their business across Google Search, Google
practices to help businesses stand out on Google.
Maps, Waze, Ads and Google Home. With Google
Business Profiles, businesses can add and claim
locations as well as edit listings data, such as opening
hours and attributes, leverage analytics and more.

But it’s not as easy as uploading a photo of your

business and calling it a day. Whether you’re
looking to claim your business listing for the first
time or looking for best practices for listings
management, this guide has something for you.

How to Claim Your

Business on Google
The first step to managing your business on Google a new account. Whichever account you choose,
is claiming your business via Google Business Profile it should be one that pertains to your business.
(GBP). You will need a Google account in order to The claiming process differs slightly depending on
access GBP. If you have an existing account for Gmail, whether your business has fewer than 10 locations or
you can use that account to log in, or you can create 10+ locations.

2 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Businesses With Fewer
Than 10 Locations
1. Add/Claim Your Business on
Google
Add your business by going to the menu section in
the top left corner in Google Maps and click Add
your Business.

3 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Type in the name of your business as well as its
primary category. Create a new business or choose
an existing listing if you see your business autofill.

Continue by filling in all of your business information,

such as your address or the areas you service if you
are a service area business.

4 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Address Entry Guidelines Only include information that is part of the official
address. Adding information like cross-streets or
Enter the complete and exact street address for your nearby landmarks may make it more difficult to
location. determine your location on Google Maps. Suite or
office numbers may be added separately from the
Example: street name and number in Address Line 2.
2650 Broadway Street,
Redwood City, CA, 94063

5 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 2. Verify Your Business c. Verify By Email
• If your business is available to verify by
Now that you have selected or entered your business
email, you’ll see the Verify by Email option
information, you must verify its accuracy with Google
when you request verification.
and confirm that you are the owner.
• Make sure you can access the email address
There are four options for verifying your business. Not
shown in the verification screen and click
all options are available for everyone.
Email from the list of verification options.

a. Verify By Mail • Click the Verify button in the verification

email, or you can enter the code from
• Click Mail to have a verification
the email in your GBP dashboard.
postcard posted to your business.

• When your postcard arrives, add the verification d. Instant Verification

code on the postcard to your GBP dashboard. • If your business’s website is verified with Google
Please note: Service area businesses are only
Search Console, you may be instantly verified.
eligible to request verification by Mail

• Make sure you are signed into GBP with the

b. Verify By Phone same account you used to verify your website.
• If your business is available to verify by
phone, you’ll see the Verify by Phone
option when you request verification.

• Make sure you can directly answer your business

phone number to get your verification code,
or to have the code sent to your phone via
automated message. Click Verify by Phone.

• Add the verification code from the

message to your GBP dashboard.

6 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Businesses With 10
or More Locations
Businesses with 10 or more locations are also eligible To Request Bulk Verification:
for bulk verification. Bulk verification is the process
• Sign into Business Profile Manager
through which a business can make updates and
add new locations without undergoing additional • On the left, click Verifications, then select Chain.
manual verification (i.e. postcard/phone verification).
• Complete the verification form with
This means that updates may go live on Google
the contact information.
within hours.
• To speed up approval, use a contact email with
To become bulk-verified, a business must have the same domain as the business website
at least 10 locations in their account for the
same business and must fill out a six-field form, Once you submit the form, a verification team
which includes: at Google will review the information provided
and the data in the account to make sure the
• Business name
business is eligible for bulk verification and that
• Business countries the contact person is a legitimate representative
of the company. They will also verify that all of
• Contact name
your locations, or a subset of your locations, exist
• Contact Phone at the address and phone provided. This can
take anywhere from one to several weeks.
• Business Manager Email

• Google Account Manager Email It’s important that businesses do not abuse their
bulk verification privileges. Businesses that bulk verify
accounts that they are not authorised to represent
or do not comply with Google’s guidelines will
likely have their bulk verification status removed.

7 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Now That Your Business
Is Listed on Google,
Here’s How You Get The
Most Out Of Your Listings:
Complete Your Profile Google looks to other search engines and online
directories to cross reference information that they
If your profile isn’t complete, it may be harder for have about your business. Any missing or conflicting
customers and search engines to find and engage with information that you have on other sites acts as a poor
your business. That’s why it’s important to fill out your signal to Google, making your business less trustworthy
listings as completely and accurately as possible. from their perspective.
This includes vertical-specific information for
businesses like hotels, healthcare, food and financial This is where having a service like Yext really comes
services. Attributes examples include: in handy. Yext has direct integrations with the largest

1. Financial Services: safe deposit boxes, check number of publishers, giving you more complete and

cashing accurate listings in as many places as possible.

2. Hospitality: free wifi available, outdoor pool

Consistently Update Your Listings
3. Healthcare: appointment required, insurances
accepted Updates and changes are among the many criteria
that Google uses to determine where to rank
4. Food: pickup and delivery services, reservation businesses in search. The more you update your listings,
required such as adding new photos, the more positive signals
you send to Google that your listings are accurate and
Customers are 2.7x more likely to consider a business trustworthy. And the more Google trusts you, the more
reputable if they find a complete Business Profile on likely they are to rank your business higher in search.
Google Search and Maps.

Customers are 70% more likely to visit and 50% more

likely to consider purchasing from businesses with a
complete Business Profile.

To get the most out of your listings on Google, it’s

important that you have complete and accurate
listings in as many places as possible – not just
on Google.

8 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Schedule Updates Engage With Consumers Via
Your Listings
Scheduled updates allow you to schedule changes
to your listings for a specific date in the future. If Social Posting
the update is temporary – for example, a seasonal Google Local Posts allow businesses to communicate
promotion or an emergency message – you can directly with customers. Posts will be displayed
schedule to revert the content to its current state at prominently in a business’ knowledge card. We
another future date. recommend that businesses frequently use this
functionality to provide timely updates around
Hours during the holidays are great examples of when
announcements, sales, specials, events, news and
businesses would want to schedule changes, as hours
offers. With a tool like Yext, you can post to your
during holidays often vary from normal operating hours.
Google and Facebook pages for multiple locations at
once, while personalising the content with embedded
fields. Embedding fields allows you to post the same
message to each location, with dynamic values for
those location-specific fields.

9 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Google Q&A Pro Tips:
Google Q&A presents businesses with an additional
• When responding to a question, make sure you
way to engage with high-intent consumers. Not
restate the question in your answer! Although it’s
only can any Google user ask a question about your
not very common, users who ask questions can
business, but they can also respond on your behalf
edit their question later on, so don’t use generic
– even a competitor! That’s why it’s so important for
answers that could be manipulated.
businesses to monitor and answer questions that
consumers ask them about their business, across • Do not include emails, phone numbers or links in
their locations on Google. And by responding as the your answers, as Google does not like this as a
business owner, people who see your response will best practice.
feel confident that your answer is the authoritative
one from the business owner, as indicated by the
blue verified tick mark. Yext allows you to monitor
and respond to questions consumers ask about your
business across your locations on Google.

10 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Sync FAQ Publisher Suggestions
Businesses can sync questions and answers to their Publishers like Google, Bing, Facebook and Yelp, often
Google Business Profile listings. These questions live in receive submissions from consumers with suggested
the same Google Q&A experience. We recommend updates to your listings. It’s important that businesses
that businesses sync their most frequently asked approve or deny those proposed edits because by not
questions, giving potential customers correct answers doing so, publisher suggestions could automatically
before they even have to ask. You can even edit these overwrite your data – whether or not they are
in bulk with a tool like Yext! accurate. Utilise Yext’s Publisher Suggestions feature to
detect edits consumers suggest about your Google,
Bing, Facebook and Yelp listings, and act on them
directly from Yext.

11 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Respond To Reviews • Retain more existing customers. Much more likely to
retain your existing customer that initially left you a
Reviews provide a great opportunity to identify your bad review with a personalised, genuine response
unhappy customers, but to also provide them with a versus something that is clearly templated and
better customer experience by responding to them. doesn’t even address the issue.
Not to mention the more you respond and engage
with your Business Profile, the more trustworthy your • Reviews are a spectator sport. People not only

business will appear from Google’s perspective. Yext read reviews, but they also read how business

consolidates all of your reviews on Google into a single owners respond to them. According to Tripadvisor,

dashboard, where you can filter by location, average '89% of people said a thoughtful response to a

rating and much more – and respond to them directly negative review improved their impression of a

from Yext. business.'

• Get extra SEO benefits. Sites like Google will

Pro Tips: crawl any information that is available to them in

• Respond as quickly as possible. Especially towards order to deliver the most relevant results to people

your negative feedback (reviews that are 1-3 stars). who search. Google will reference content from
the review as well as the response from the
• Personalise your responses. This has a number of business owner.
benefits:

12 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Suppress Duplicates See Real Results With Analytics
Duplicate listings come from a variety of sources. How do you know if what you are doing to boost
Whether they come from rebrands, updates like a your online presence is working? On top of that, how
change in your address, suggestions from consumers are people finding you – through mobile or desktop
on your listings or the result of data aggregators that search? And what percentage of clicks and search
erroneously create new listings when they are not able impressions come from branded versus unbranded
to process updates immediately – duplicate listings can queries? And the real money driver for you – how
be detrimental to your business. Not only do consumers are these metrics trending over time? As a business
not know which listing to trust, but publishers also get owner, it’s critical to understand how your business is
confused about which listing they should feature in performing across all of your locations. Using a tool
search results. And remember, Google cross references like Yext consolidates your analytics not just on
information from other online directories. That’s why Google, but on the many sites in our 200+ publisher
it’s important to have a tool that identifies potential network. This provides a true holistic representation
duplicates and allows you to suppress them everywhere of your performance in search – unlike most listings
your brand lives. Yext suppresses duplicates based on vendors that can only capture analytics on Google
each publisher’s best practices. and Facebook.

Finally, Other Best

Practices on Google:
Relocations Temporarily Closed vs Permanently
​​Considering relocating your business? Moving your
Closed vs Coming Soon
business to a new address or changing your business’s Temporarily Closed
name both provide exciting opportunities to reintroduce • Mark locations as Temporarily Closed if you are a
yourself to your customers. But before you can do seasonal business or will be closed longer than 7
just that, you need to ensure your customers can still consecutive days
find you. Updating your listings is a critical piece of
• Select a reopen date out in the future if you don’t
relocating or rebranding your business. You might think
know the exact reopen date
it is as simple as marking your old location as 'closed'
on Google and creating a new profile, but the reality is • If your business will be closed for 6 consecutive days
that there are several factors to consider. There are two or less, use Special Hours.
options to consider depending on the specifics of your
• Do NOT mark your business as Temporarily Closed if
move and your location’s online reputation.
you are only offering pickup or delivery services at
• Option 1: create a new listing and mark the old one your location(s).
as 'closed', leaving it live for 6 months

• Option 2: update your existing listing to reflect the

new address.
For more information on when to choose each option,
reference this HH blog post.

13 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Permanently Closed Service Area Businesses
Businesses should mark locations as permanently
closed if their business moves to an entirely new Service area businesses are companies that visit and/
location. or deliver a customer’s location. Think of handymen like
a plumber who comes to your home to fix its plumbing.
• Google recommends deleting the old location Service area businesses can list their service area
from your dashboard and adding the new location 'places' to specify their area of operation on Google.
with a new store code. You can mark the original Places is a broad term but you can think of a place as
location as closed in Google maps so that any geographical area that can be interpreted and
customers don’t go to the wrong location. located by a human. You can have up to 20 service
• Simply deleting a location in the GBP UI is NOT places, with Google’s most popular Places being
recommended. Postcode, City/Town, Neighbourhood and State/
Territory.
• It’s recommended to use a service like Yext that will
keep closed locations on an active subscription for Pro Tips:
6 months.
• The boundaries of your overall area should not
• This allows enough time for Google to make the extend further than about 2 hours of driving time
necessary updates and for the listing to fall out from where your business is based.
of the SERP.
• If you change your business type from a storefront
Coming Soon to a service-area business or hybrid business, keep
Businesses have the opportunity to list their business as in mind:
Coming Soon for locations that are not yet open, but • If you do serve customers at your business
will be in the future. This will help generate excitement address and also have a service area: Enter
and anticipation amongst customers leading up to both your address and service area.
your open date.
• If you don’t serve customers at your business
• You can either specify your open date with a
address: Clear the address field and only enter
specific date or the month you will open.
your service area.
• The maximum open date is 1 year in the future,
but it’s recommended to list a business as Coming
Agency Accounts
Soon up to 90 days in advance.
Agency accounts usually consist of marketing agencies
or individuals who manage the Google Business Profile
page for multiple different businesses. Registering your
agency with Google provides a number of benefits:

• Google support that’s focused on agency-specific

needs.

• Account structure that’s designed for third parties

to manage all their profiles under one account.

• Ability to create user groups to manage teams

within your agency.

• New and improved process to manage invitations

via your agency dashboard.

14 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 How To Handle Issues
That May Come Up With
Your Google Listings:
Ownership Conflicts Suspended Listings
Each location on Google can have only one verified There are two kinds of suspensions, a 'soft' suspension
owner. If you see the status 'Access needed' in your and a 'hard' suspension.
account, this means another owner has verified this
location on Google. When you add a location that Soft Suspension
matches a live location with a different owner, it is A 'soft' suspension marks your business as suspended,
treated as a duplicate and will be ignored when but you still show up in search results. It typically
importing your spreadsheet. requires reclaiming and reverifying the listing with
a new Google account. These suspensions are
You can request management if you’d like to request a becoming less common.
transfer of ownership from the current owner or to be
added as a manager. Hard Suspension
A 'hard' suspension will remove your business listing
Before doing so, we recommend checking in within your from search results. To pull your listing out of a hard
organisation to see who you may need to coordinate suspension, you must follow Google’s protocol and be
with, including agencies your company may have hired very patient.
to manage on behalf of the business.
Why do listings get suspended? Well, while Google
After requesting ownership, the current profile owner will not officially disclose the reason a listing has been
has 3 days to respond. You’ll be notified via email suspended, there are common events that tend to
whether your request was approved or denied by the result in suspended listings:
existing profile owner If denied, you might be able to
• Information within your listing changed. Information
appeal the request. If you don’t hear back after 3 days,
changes that often result in suspended listings
you might have the option to claim the profile yourself.
include changes to your primary category,
business name, GBP ownership, and changing to a
(For more information on ownership requests, reference
service area business with a hidden address after
this help article by Google.)
operating with a visible address.

• Primary category is a high-risk industry.

• Categories that are considered high risk are

locksmiths, HVAC, plumbing and other home
services businesses

• Address violates Google policy

15 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 How to Fix a Suspended Listing • Photos of the business location
• Business logo clearly visible
In order to lift your listing out of suspension, Google • Street address of the building / suite numbers
may require you to provide proof that you are a on the door
legitimate business. Here are a few examples of the • Company vehicles with logos parked at the
kind of proof you’ll need to provide: building

• Tax identification papers

• State/territory business licence (if required by the
state/territory) • Video verification

• Professional licensing (if required by law)

• Proof of occupancy of location

• Utility bills

• Rental agreements / deeds

Yvonne Rayburn
Digital Media Manager, OhioHealth

'When patients are searching online, especially for something like

urgent care, they’re searching for it because they need it right now,
and the information really better be correct. That’s where Yext is
super helpful for us. We want to provide excellent patient care
across digital channels.'

16 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

 Managing Your
Business Listings on
Google With Yext
The GBP API replaces the manual work normally Yext enables companies of all sizes to easily collect
required to update Google listings with an automated information about their brand through our data
feed. However, given the complexity of collecting, connector framework. We then organise your data in
storing and managing information, especially across a knowledge graph so it’s structured to provide direct
multiple locations, many businesses will choose answers to questions and search queries. From there,
to leverage the API through a data management we publish your data across our expansive network
partner. Updates in the Yext push to GBP in real of 200+ third-party publishers. Our network includes
time. From there, Google syncs that information with not only Google, but also Amazon Alexa, Apple Maps,
Google Search, Maps, Google Assistant and Waze – Facebook, Bing, Yelp, Waze, Doordash, Vitals, WebMD,
all within minutes. Tripadvisor and many more services consumers use to
search every day.

John Dillon
CMO, Denny’s

'People have to walk through brick-and-mortar doors in order to

experience our brand – we are not an online vendor. The purpose
of our online search experience is to drive diners into our actual
restaurants time and again, and that is where Yext is invaluable.'

For more information, and to set up a demo, please visit yext.com/demo.

17 The Yext Guide to Google Business Profiles

Yext (NYSE: YEXT) helps organisations answer every question about
their business. Yext's Answers Platform collects and organises content
into a knowledge graph, then leverages a complementary set of
products — including Listings, Pages, Reviews, and Search — to deliver
relevant, actionable answers wherever customers, employees, and
partners look for information. For over 15 years, thousands of
companies worldwide have trusted Yext to create seamless content-
driven experiences at scale across search engines, websites, mobile
apps, and hundreds of other digital touchpoints.

Learn more at yext.co.uk