Google Business Profile (formally known as Google My Business Or GMB) has only become more popular in recent years and its popularity has accelerated with the rise of local-based searches. Local-based searches include terms like “near me” or “query + location” eg: “eye doctor in Sydney”. Google Business Profile has become an important search marketing tool for all businesses and many potential customers assess business attributes such as images and reviews to decide if they want to engage with a brand.

New FAQ Automated Messaging

Google Business Profile’s latest addition to its nifty arsenal includes automated messaging through frequently asked questions. This can be managed under the FAQ’s section of the messaging area and allows businesses to suggest questions potential customers can ask when a chat is started, and set up automated responses to those questions. This takes some of the manual labour out of responding to common questions and performs like a chatbot may function on many websites we see today.

Here is a screenshot of the new feature:

Is this right for your business?

Possibly the best new feature is the ability to include links in automated answers which will guide potential customers to specific areas of your website for more detailed information. You will be able to create up to 10 FAQs with questions at a maximum of 40 characters and answers with 500 maximum characters. If you have previously had good experiences with a chatbot on your website or would like to try something similar within Google Business Profile, we would suggest giving this a go! Alternatively, if you get a lot of FAQ’s and find yourself sending through the same answers to potential clients and/ or guiding them to certain sections of your website, this may be a time-saving breath of fresh air!

Why do we care?

If you feel like this is a feature that will save you time manually answering questions, it’s a no-brainer. And if you don’t have the resources to manually answer all questions from Google Business Profile, this new feature will help you answer questions in a timely manner, improving customer sentiment, growing your brand’s reputations and ultimately, leading to an improved business experience for everyone.

If you want to enable automated FAQ’s on your Google Business Profile or if you’re interested in growing your traffic and leads, pop us a message!

Tags: 1 thing, digital marketing, google, serp features