Whether you like it or not, Google My Business is your hotel’s virtual storefront. It’s the first thing most potential guests will see when searching for you on the web.
This virtual storefront could be responsible for driving a huge amount of traffic to your hotel website. Or, if it’s poorly managed, towards an OTA or another hotel entirely. Across all Net Affinity clients, about 73% of all direct bookings can be traced back to Google properties, taking both organic and paid search traffic into account. Keeping Google My Business optimised and up to date is key to your book direct strategy.
Why Does Google My Business Matter?
Studies addressing how users read web content suggest their eye line will be drawn to the right-hand side of the screen on the search results page, where the ‘knowledge panel’ sits. This panel includes a small selection of photos of the property, key features and amenities, guest reviews, your address, phone number as well as Google Hotel Ads. All of this can be viewed before the user even clicks on your website on Google Search and Maps.
Dublin Skylon Hotel Google My Business panel – mobile and desktop view
Getting an elegant and fast website will boost bookings, but if your My Business account is neglected, you might be limiting the likelihood of users reaching your website and making a valuable direct booking. Hoteliers should take control of their free-to-use My Business account in the same way they would do with more obvious public profiles, such as their Facebook page.
By verifying your property’s My Business page, you gain the right to edit the information in the My Business knowledge panel. If you don’t do this, Google pulls in information about your hotel which may be unflattering, and even miss-representative of your property in its current state. If you’ve had a full refurbishment, it should reflect that. If you’ve updated your branding, it should be accurate and consistent to be easily recognizable to returning customers.
