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Looking for a way to grow your brand or photography business? You may be overlooking one free promotional opportunity – Google’s business listings. Whether you have a storefront or a home studio, you can reach more potential customers with a verified Google My Business Listing. This service helps put your business on the map (literally) and helps Google users see what is around them.
You don’t have to have a brick-and-mortar storefront to own a verified listing – you can mark yourself as a “service area” business and hide your address from the map and search results. Once you have a verified Google My Business listing, you can personalize and edit the profile to better reflect your brand and reach your target audience. One way to expose your Google My Business profile is by taking advantage of Google’s attributes to describe your business.
Google lets business owners identify specific services, features, or other qualities about their business to allow their listings to show up in relevant local searches. While many of these are crowd-sourced by Google users, business owners can add attributes themselves. The attributes appear on your business listing in search results and on Google Maps. Some attributes, such as “Women-led” and “Outdoor seating”, show up as badge icons in mobile listings.
As a business owner, you can select many attributes yourself. For example, if you run a floral boutique, you have the ability to select attributes that describe your services or product offerings. For example, you can specify whether your business has on-site parking or if the building is easy to spot from a car driving by. You should always describe your business as accurately as possible.
Additionally, Google users can also select attributes that they believe describe your business. This can be done by clicking “Answer quick questions” in the listing. When users select these attributes, you are notified in your Google My Business dashboard. It’s important to stay on top of your profile to make sure that the suggested attributes are accurate. Above is an example of Google My Business’s crowd-sourced attributes feature from the search results.
When you add attributes to your Google My Business listing, you increase the chance that your business will show up in more specific searches. In the aobve example, a query for “bars near me” will also bring up some additional categories, such as “Outdoor drinks for cheap” or “Bars with live music”. This information is gathered via Google’s attributes feature.
To add attributes to your listing, log in to your Google My Business account. Once you navigate to your business listing profile, click on “Info” in the left-hand column. In the section below your primary listing information like your phone number and hours, you will see a blue “price tag” icon. Click on the editing pencil next to the blue tag to add or edit your business attributes.
Below is a comprehensive list of Google My Business Attributes. The attributes that you are able to select depend on your business category.
While there are many attributes that you can select from your Google My Business dashboard, there are some descriptors that Google applies to your business based on what Google users think. These attributes can be selected from the “Answer quick questions” link on your live business listing. The yes/no questions are framed to generate responses from customers, but business owners can also answer these descriptive questions. Some examples include “Does this place sell gerberas” or “Is this place good for a quick shopping trip?”
You can see what past customers and Google users think about your business by navigating to the “Insights” page on your Google My Business dashboard.
Below is a compilation of some selected “hidden” attributes that you can select via the “Answer quick questions” link on your business listing:
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