The 5 New Features of Google My Business

Digital Marketing / April 03, 2024

Since the beginning of 2024, Google My Business has made numerous changes, both in terms of the information businesses can share to enhance their local visibility, and in the interface to facilitate user searches.

1. Revolutionizing Location Discovery: Google My Business Harnesses Artificial Intelligence

Google introduces an experimental feature in Google Maps that uses AI to help users discover local businesses that meet specific needs. For example, a restaurant with a festive atmosphere that offers a vegan menu, or an activity to do during rainy weather.

The new feature uses large language models to analyze the Google Maps database of over 250 million locations, photos, ratings, reviews and more.

After entering a conversational search query, Google Maps suggests personalized recommendations for businesses, events, restaurants and activities in the area.

Source : Search Engine Journal

2. The Reviews Section Will Bring Together Reviews From All Platforms

Google has recently adjusted the way reviews are presented on listings, highlighting reviews from other platforms. Now, when a user clicks on the reviews section of a listing, they are redirected to a new search, including reviews from various platforms such as Google, Tripadvisor, Uber Eats and TrustPilot and other local platforms.

Previously, only Google reviews were displayed in a new tab. 

3. Adding Social Media Profiles To Google Company Profiles

This is a very useful update for small businesses wishing to provide potential customers with more links to their social networking profiles.

The Google My Business profile is usually the first that people see when they perform a search on Google or Maps. If people need to access a business’s Instagram profile, they have to perform a new search, wasting extra time.

Now, by having profiles on social networks, small businesses can add their website and also links to different profiles so that customers can find the right place to interact or engage with them.

For example, one of our customers doesn’t have links to their social networks, but when we log in to the GMB profile, Google suggests adding links to social networks, saying that this is a new feature.

Sources : Krystal Taing, Google.

4. Google Business Profile Now Includes Posts From Social Networks

In a recent update, Google has implemented an option that allows content published on your social media, such as Facebook, Instagram or X, to be displayed directly on your Business Profile cards. This feature, which aims to highlight a company’s online activity, is currently being rolled out, and may “not yet be available for your business listing”, as Google states on its help page.

Companies that have already linked a social networking account to their Business Profile will be able to see their recent publications displayed in a new dedicated section, as shown in the example below.

5. Booking Services 

Google business profiles now display services with booking buttons. Google has offered booking buttons on local panels since 2017, but now they’re present in the services section of Google business profiles and we can directly book a specific service.

This was spotted by Claudia Tomina, who posted this example on X.

Google My Business has been subject to many new features and adjustments in this first quarter of 2024. Local SEO is constantly evolving, and we’re always on the lookout for the latest advances to help our customers manage their local listings. 

If you’d like us to help you optimize your Google My Business listing, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be delighted to help.