Google My Business Sneaks Out Action URLs

This is an extract from TWIS SEO News & Updates 11 August 2017.

Read about how Google My Business has quietly sneaked out action URLs into the GMB dashboard, and find out what the actions you can add are, and how to add them to your Google My Business listing.

Contact me to discuss implementation of this potential conversion-driving conversion feature for your business.

#SEO #GoogleMyBusiness #LocalSEO #Conversions

Summary:

• They didn’t make a big deal out of it, but Google My Business has released links to specific action URLs into some listings. This is an extension of recent moves into Direct Actions.
• These can be added manually to link directly to a specific action on site, or automatically to link to a third-party provider (as long as the provider is able to provide these URLs to Google).
• The action URLs include: booking appointments, reserving tables, placing an order, viewing menus and searching for items.
• Google doesn’t make mention whether this is available system-wide yet.

Actions to take:

1. Check your Google My Business listing to see if you can add Action URLs yet.
2. If you can, consider adding them, following the Google My Business instructions here.
3. If you use third party services to manage these actions, then your provider may already have been included, and your links may be showing.
4. If they aren’t, then reach out to them, to find out if they have applied to be included in this effort by Google.
5. Note that this is seperate to the update revealed in Google Posts Goes Live in Google My Business.
6. Contact me to discuss implementation of this feature for your business.

Discussion:

It’s odd that this was rolled out quietly, as it’s potentially quite significant for GMB users. Perhaps Google My Business really wants to  use the third party data rather than the original source data. Using third party data would likely improve data purity and accuracy, possibly reduce spam, and also allow a charging avenue to the third party services.

If you run any kind of business, you should be on Google My Business, even if purely to take your spot. You should also take advantage of this to direct visitors straight into an action. With the advent of Google Posts,  even if we have doubts about it (Google Posts Not Quite Ready) Google is clearly taking a stab at the Direct Action part of the market.

More info:

• Google Local Business URLs
• Google Posts Goes Live in Google My Business
• H/T SE Land – Quick URLs

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We recently released the super-exciting The State of SEO in mid-2017. Read it now.

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• Google has enabled a way for GMB businesses to link to specific action URLs.
• Add them if you can, they could be decent conversion drivers.
• The only struggle will be if you use 3rd-party integrations to manage these actions
• Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
• Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
• Read about how to get Google to Find, Crawl, Index your site.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.

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