Now you can post a business description right to the knowledge panel. Earlier this month the ability to edit the content in your business listing description has been added back to the Google My Business page listing.
This gives you the company owner a chance to present your company information as you want to present it yourself. Since about 2016 this was not available. Now you can describe what you do and describe it the way you want as long as you stay within the guidelines. Before this change, the information that was displayed was populated to the listing by Google. Usually, the description was extracted from website content.
Being a new feature the effect is not clear if the increased amount of the information posted to the listing has any effect on how your listing will show up in the search results. It has not been tested by anyone, but it only makes sense that the more information you have on the company presented to the visitor the better. It should increase the chances you have of the visitor going to your site or call to do business with you. As with any other effort to optimize your google my business page the more, you do in comparison to the competition who may ignore there listing the better off you are.
How to do the edits
After you log in to the Google My Business console there is a new section. Click on the information tab This will show the next screen where there is the field titled “add business description” with a pencil icon next to it. Click on that and it opens a box where you can write out a description that is up to 750 characters. I just happened to write one that comes out to exactly that amount. As of this video, it is pending review. For me, it makes sense to write out the information in a word processor get it to where it reads well then past it into the field.
I have a listing that was just taken over so am going to go through all the steps of improving the listing and will be showing how I did it. In future videos, I will be adding all features available to this listing. Before starting to write the content, it is best to do a quick review of the Google policies
I am going to cover them here and have a link at the end for reference. Here are the things that Google is looking for when entering the description of your business on the Google My Business page.
- What you offer and how you are unique
- Your Company history
- Information for customers to know so they can make a decision
- Keep it company and services focused
- The goal is to help customers understand your business
- This is not the place to make it a sales piece. No promotions
On the other side here is a list of things that they do not want you to do. Use common sense and you will be fine. There are always the people that abuse the system by pushing the edge. To keep it short I am going to be brief on the items and you can find more details in the links below. Here is a list of what not to do; How are you different
- Do not mislead users with false information about your business or the services and products offered.
- distracting content to attacrct attention, misspellings, gimmicky character use
- Do not have special promotions, prices, and offer sale
- No links of any type are allowed
- No offensive or inappropriate content
- No Harassing, bullying, or hateful content
- No Content that is obscene, profane, or offensive language
- Nothing promoting and encouraging violence or terrorism
- Noting Sexually suggestive or explicit content
- Do not upload content related to the sale of dangerous and illegal products or services
- Do not upload content that exploits or abuses children
750 characters is a pretty good amount of space to supply potential customers with information about your business So take advantage of it make the edits and stand out better than your competitors