Google My Business Short Name Feature!
This Week Let’s Talk About What is a Google My Business Short Name & How to Create One for Google My Business!
As we’ve mentioned before, Google My Business is a valuable asset for any small business. In the past year, 64% of consumers have used Google My Business to find contact details for local businesses. If this is not an incentive to create an account, we don’t know what is!
After you’ve verified your Google My Business listing, you can then create a Short Name.
A Short Name is a unique URL, similar to other social media platforms’ use of handles, that will allow your customers to quickly and easily find your listing.
With a short name, all a customer will have to do to find your business is look up “g.page/[yourcustomname]” instead of scrolling through endless search results!
Keep reading to learn more about Google My Business Short Names and how to create one for your small business.
Why is Google My Business introducing Short Names?
Google My Business’ new Short Name feature has been gaining a lot of buzz in the marketing and social media world.
Why? Because it is the first sign of Google adopting more characteristics of a traditional social media platform.
Google has attempted its own social media platform in the past called Google+. However, this platform was not very successful.
The new Short Name option not only shows that Google is attempting to become a more social platform, but it allows Google My Business listings to compete better locally against local Instagram, Facebook, and Yelp pages.
Google Short Names are similar to handles that other social media platforms use. This feature offers a uniqueness to their users that fosters a community of recognizability. Though an important feature now, it may become even more critical in the future as Google begins to tackle more online social space. So keep an eye out for that!
We discussed the potential of Google My Business’ new Short Name feature in more depth in our blog about Google My Business’ Local SEO Updates for Summer 2019.
What does a Google My Business Short Name do?
As we hinted to above, Google Short Names can help your business in a number of ways.
Some of the biggest ways a Short Name can help your business include:
- Accessibility: By having a direct URL to follow to your specific business page instead of googling it and finding possible competitors, a potential customer can access your business directly using your Short Name. This benefits your business because it will lead to higher conversion rates as well as clients as they will find what they are looking for faster and without the hassle.
- Subscriptions: Clients can also choose to ‘follow’ your business’ Short Name, which means that information about your business will pop up in their Google Chrome homepage on mobile devices.
- Special Deals: Once you have a Short Name on Google, you can create special offers, coupons, and deals for your business. This attracts customers’ interest, increases the likelihood of sales, and benefits the notoriety of your business overall!
How to Create a Google Short Name
Below is a very simple guide to creating a Short Name of your very own.
Remember, you want your Short Name to be fun, recognizable, and also represent your brand well. Choose wisely!
- First, log into your verified Google My Business account. This can be accessed by going to business.google.com
- Once logged in, go to the info tab on the left-hand side of your Google My Business account homepage
- Once in the info tab, the page may have some added fields for you complete for your business. This page is updated regularly as Google releases new options and features, so pay close attention to this in the future!
- Find your Google Short Name editor which is signified with an @ symbol, similar to other social platforms’ handles feature.
- Create your preferred Short Name. Remember that this is what people will find your business by, so it should be recognizable. Your business’ Short Name should also use keywords to help increase your Google ranking.
- Remember to save and publish your new Short Name.
And there you have it! Your business now has its very own Google Short Name. This new feature will help increase traffic, accessibility, and sales to your Google My Business page.
Have you used Google Short Names before? If so, tell us your favorite feature in the comments below or how it’s helped to improve your business.
If not, what’s stopping you or what’s a feature you’re hoping to see added soon?
Want to read the rest of the Google My Business series? Previous installments are:
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