Knowing when your business can and can’t have multiple listings has been a tricky thing to navigate. As a way to reduce this confusion, Google recently updated their rules and made some significant changes to Google My Business. If these changes are leaving you more confused than before, not to worry. The SEO experts at beMarketing put together everything you need to know about these Google My Business changes, and how it could impact your business’s local search.

The Address Field Is No Longer a Requirement

Unlike before, filling in the address field is now optional. Although there’s still a grey area for first-time page creators as specifying an address is required to receive the verification postcard. However, you can delete the address after verification has been received.

Radius-Targeting Has Been Removed

Targeting everything within a specific distance from your place of business is no longer a feature. Instead, you’ll have to specify cities, states/provinces or ZIP codes.

Also, when you want to update your service-area settings, you’ll no longer make the changes in the “Address” field. Now, you’ll update your “Address” settings and “Service Area” settings in two separate fields.

Not All Addresses Will Show in Local 3-Pack

For certain service industry businesses, addresses will no longer show in the local 3-pack. This is true even if you never selected to “hide” your address, ensuring it wouldn’t show publicly. If you own a service industry business, your address most likely won’t be listed in the local 3-pack. 

Great Tools to Help Manage Your Local Search

Interested in recommendations for your My Google Business profile? Valentin, a new, free rank-checker, can be used by service-area or brick-and-mortar business to get localized SERPs at an exact location. This makes search results more relevant by using your location data for a more accurate location.

Although these changes may intimidate you, experimenting with them now, while your competitors may not even know about them, is the perfect time. If you doubt your ability to navigate these changes, then contact us today and let our experienced SEO team at beMarketing help!