GMB Products and Q&A

[StefanEarly]

I have a couple of questions about Products and Q&A in GMB

1. What is the best way to use the products section for plumbers and home service businesses? The products section is available for them, is it good practice to enter their services like emergency plumbing, blocked drains, gas fitting or should it be used to list the products and brands they use like Bosch hot water systems.
2. Should a business owner ask their own Q&A questions from a different Google account and answer them?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

 

[Rich Owings]

2. You should ask and answer them. It doesn't matter which account you ask them from, since questions don't show who they are from. But be sure to answer them from the owner's account, so the answer is labelled as such.

 

[MiriamEllis]

Hey Stefan!

1) I've seen some SAB brands using products as services. I'm not yet sure how I feel about doing this vs. using the service menu feature. It could make sense in some cases, but I'd like to see other opinions on the usefulness of this for the customer.

2) Yes, definitely post your brand's own FAQs and answer them in Google Q&A. This is permitted, and no need to use two different accounts to do it. Think of the things that your phone staff and field staff are asked most often and put those in this section to assist conversions.

 

[StefanEarly]

Hi Miriam and Rich,
1)Thanks for your replies, I think I have read in a few places that it is worthwhile adding your services into the products section but like you, I am still uncertain if I should list something like "emergency plumbing" as a product. It would be interesting to see some other opinions on this.
2)Great, I will start adding the most popular questions to the Q&A section.

 

[Claire Carlile]

I have a couple of questions about Products and Q&A in GMB

1. What is the best way to use the products section for plumbers and home service businesses? The products section is available for them, is it good practice to enter their services like emergency plumbing, blocked drains, gas fitting or should it be used to list the products and brands they use like Bosch hot water systems.
2. Should a business owner ask their own Q&A questions from a different Google account and answer them?

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Hi Stefan

I'm a little late to the party - great answers above!

I've used 'products' successfully for service based businesses - I'd recommend adding your key services in this section - using carefully chosen images and copy, and linking through to the relevant service page on the website. Use UTM tagging for these links (there's a guide here) so that you can monitor the amount and quality of the website traffic driven by the 'products' section of the business profile.

Good luck,

Claire

 

[Tony Wang]

Also, after posting your Q&A's, upvote your answers. I believe the q's don't show up explicitly in the Knowledge Panel until they get at least 3 votes. You can upvote from personal accounts or have employees do it.

 

[Contractor]

Also, after posting your Q&A's, upvote your answers. I believe the q's don't show up explicitly in the Knowledge Panel until they get at least 3 votes. You can upvote from personal accounts or have employees do it.

I just looked at my Q&A's. I wrote 3 questions myself and had someone else ask 1. I answered all 4 and upvoted both the questions and answers myself. I was the only person to upvote any of them, but they all show up on a clean browser.

 

[patrick6411]

What I do is write down the actual question clients ask when calling. I use these by posting them and answering them. I like to do these because they are real questions and oftentimes they also search terms. We don't upvote them or anything, maybe I should start doing that.

 

[StefanEarly]

Thanks for the replies, I have a much better idea about how to use both sections now and will list services in the products section for our SAB clients.

Hi Stefan

I'm a little late to the party - great answers above!

I've used 'products' successfully for service based businesses - I'd recommend adding your key services in this section - using carefully chosen images and copy, and linking through to the relevant service page on the website. Use UTM tagging for these links (there's a guide here) so that you can monitor the amount and quality of the website traffic driven by the 'products' section of the business profile.

Good luck,

Claire

Awesome, thanks Claire, I will read through your article and get UTM tracking set up as well