Keeping your business information current helps prevent frustrated customers from searching and showing up when you’re closed.
You can set Primary hours that will display on your Google My Business listing. You can also add Special Hours, temporary hours for a day, or a range of days.
Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
A business’s GMB listing is the foundation of its local search optimization and is central to gaining more customers. Most Google products and services stem from the GMB platform, so it’s essential to maintain complete control of your GMB listing and ensure everything is up-to-date.
You should regularly update your operating hours on your GMB page, especially for holidays or extended hours. Having your correct information upfront can prevent potential customers from getting turned away when they reach your store. You can easily update your business holiday hours in your GMB profile by clicking the “hours” tab and the pencil icon next to the current hours.
Adding photos of your physical location is another excellent way to get your GMB page noticed online. Studies show businesses with pictures receive more calls and messages than those without images. This is why it’s a best practice to have photos of your brick-and-mortar location, both the exterior and interior, as well as any product or service offerings you may have.
It’s also essential to use the categories Google asks you to select. Selecting a relevant type helps consumers decide whether your business matches their query, so fill in as many as possible. Google also mixes in other data it collects, including review snippets, keywords, and editorial summaries, to give users a complete picture of your business.
Optimize Your Website
Keeping up with business hours is essential for many businesses. It helps manage customer expectations and prevents customers from showing up when your business is closed. It can also help to avoid negative online reviews.
Suppose your clients’ business hours must be corrected on their Google Business Profile. In that case, users searching for them may get the wrong impression and show up at a time when they’re not open, which can lead to frustration and possibly even lost revenue. This is why it’s crucial to continually audit your clients’ business hours on Google so that they stay accurate.
The good news is it’s super easy to update your client’s business hours on their GMB listing, and it’s a great idea to do so well before the holidays. Once you’ve updated your business hours, they will appear in Search, Maps, and the business listings on Google. However, these changes may take a few days to be reflected across all platforms. You can manually contact Google to update your business information to speed up the process.
Optimize Your Social Media
During this time of uncertainty, business owners must make the most of every opportunity to drive foot traffic. Keeping your Google My Business listings updated is one way to do this. By doing so, you can help potential customers understand when your store is open.
Moreover, it can help you identify and communicate any changes to operating hours with your customer base. This is especially important for businesses that rely on customers visiting their store or restaurant to generate revenue. Communicating these changes can prevent customers from arriving at your establishment when you are closed, leading to negative reviews.
Remember that Google may rely on third-party sources (like Yelp or Facebook) to collect and update your business information. As such, you should regularly check your GMB listings to ensure the suggested hours are accurate and in line with your business hours.
Consider leveraging special holiday events to get your customers through the door. This tactic is used by both restaurants and retail stores, such as convenience store chain 7-Eleven, which drove a 51% increase in sales when it promoted its free Slurpee holiday. This is a great way to increase brand awareness, engage your customers, and bring in new ones. You can also use a modern stock control solution to track product sales and movements to know what items are selling well and which aren’t moving, allowing you to optimize your inventory management.
Optimize Your Email Marketing
The holiday season is one of the most critical times for businesses. It brings joy and happiness to people, making them eager to buy and shop. Moreover, it is also one of the most lucrative times for businesses. Because of this, companies should make their best efforts to boost traffic and sales during the holidays.
To do this, they should update their Google Business Profile hours and ensure that it reflects the actual operating hours of their business. They should also use the ‘More hours’ option to add services such as online operating hours, delivery, and pickup if they offer these. This will help them stand out to potential customers in the search results and give a more accurate representation of their business.
Aside from updating their business hours, companies should also optimize email marketing. They should use the correct subject line, email design, and send time, and they should also consider optimizing their emails for voice assistants. They should also do some A/B testing and use list segmentation to target their messages effectively.
It’s easy to forget to change your business hours. However, it can have severe consequences for your business. Therefore, it’s essential always to keep your Google Business Profile updated. To learn more about this, check out our comprehensive guide on updating your Google Business Profile hours.