For sales teams at digital marketing agencies, staying on top of Google updates is crucial for helping your SMB clients succeed. The latest changes to Google Business Profiles offer exciting new opportunities to improve local visibility for your clients, while also revealing some surprising insights about how Google collects business information.
Google has just made getting customer reviews significantly easier with a new QR code feature within the "Get more reviews" section of Business Manager. This update allows businesses to generate a custom QR code that, when scanned, takes customers directly to the review submission form.
Why this matters for your sales team?
When SMB prospects ask what will make the biggest impact on their local SEO, the answer is more authentic reviews. In fact, 92% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase. This new tool makes that process frictionless for your clients and their customers.
Your sales team can use this update as a conversation starter with prospects by:
Remember to caution clients that while encouraging reviews is permitted, offering incentives or selectively soliciting positive reviews violates Google's policies and could result in penalties.
In a separate but equally important update, Google has expanded what appears in local pack results for experience-driven businesses like restaurants and gyms. The "About this place" feature reveals Google’s local data sources and now includes links to discussions from:
What this tells your sales team:
This update confirms what many SEO experts have long suspected… Google is looking far beyond a business's own website and Google Business Profile when determining local search rankings. The search giant is actively monitoring discussions about businesses across the web to provide users with the most comprehensive view possible.
These updates create perfect opportunities for your sales team to demonstrate value to prospects:
Google continues to emphasise authentic customer experiences in local search, making comprehensive digital presence management more important than ever for SMBs. Your sales team is perfectly positioned to help prospects understand these changes and implement strategies that capitalise on these opportunities.
Looking to equip your sales team with tools they need to serve hospitality clients? Book a demo today to see how our platform can help your team convert more leads into lasting client relationships.