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Heads Up – Google My Business is Changing

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Heads Up – Google My Business is Changing

Your Dental Google Business Page will become “Business Profile” – What Dentists Need To Know

When we start new marketing projects for dentists, one of the key things we advise the business owner or manager to prioritise, is setting up and optimising the Google Business page for the practice. This has had a few different names over the years but seemed to have stabilised as “Google My Business” and it is this name that most people are now familiar with.

But as ever, Google is re-jigging some of their web tools and moving forwards, Google “My Business” will be known as Google Business Profile. They are doing this to help streamline their various app interfaces and will bring management of the “business” page into the overall structure of Google Maps, Search and their respective apps.

When will this happen?

We expect to see this roll out progressively during 2022 and Google has advised that larger business will likely see the changes first. Initially you will see changes to the branding within the existing My Business management console but further changes are expected as the integration and rationalisation continues. So at this stage it’s a “heads up” to make dental businesses aware that changes to this essential Google tool are in progress and to expect them relatively soon.

If I’m about to set up a new Google My Business page, should I wait?

Definitely not! This is an essential tool and will start to work for your practice as soon as it’s up and running, so please don’t delay. You can be pretty certain that Google won’t lose what you’ve done as the changes take place.

New features also announced….

Google has also taken the opportunity to announce a few new features to help businesses alongside this configuration change.

  • You can now claim your business listing directly in Google Maps and Search
  • Call history is launching – but only in the US and Canada for now
  • Messaging (see our recent article here) will be available directly from Google Search
  • Message read receipts will be controllable directly from Search and Maps

Why should you care about this and is there anything to do?

The new Google Business Profile is as important as ever and here’s a quick reminder why:

  • It forms a key “marker” for your business in the most important search engine. Google uses your business profile to determine what your business does and where you are based and it’s a fundamental foundation for Google Search more generally
  • It provides key information for users looking for your business in Search and Maps
  • It allows you to interact with users via tools such as “messaging”
  • It is the key facility for patient to leave reviews for your business and for you to respond. Remember that there is a strong correlation between where you appear in the search results and the number of positive reviews your business receives
  • It provides a strong back-link to your website

For now you don’t need to do anything and I suspect you actually won’t need to do any adjustments moving forward as long as your business page is already set up and optimised. I think we can be pretty certain that Google will migrate all of your data automatically and that the process will be seamless as far as the user is concerned. You will need to become used to the new format and how to access and manage your page moving forwards, but I suspect that will be all.

If anything else changes with this essential Google business tool or indeed any of their others (Analytics, Search Console etc) the team at Dental Media will be on the case on your behalf to bring you the key points which may affect your business. If you have any questions regarding this change or for broader advice about how your dental business appears in Google, please get in touch on 01332 672548 and we’ll be pleased to assist.