Add Services to Your GMB Listing Before Google Steals Your Leads!

The Services area of your Google My Business listing has suddenly become an important detail to fill in. The reason being, is that service businesses who left that option blank are suddenly finding a link to a third party lead generation company (singleplatform.com) in the spot where their Services Menu would otherwise be.

So far the results of clicking the third party link varies. However, in a strange turn, Google has made that link NOT open in a new window. Instead navigates users away from Google to put them on a dedicated page for that business that includes the services the business offers.

Sometimes when you land on this new services page there is an option to Get a Quote that results in quotes, not from the business they were originally looking at, but instead from businesses that have paid for inclusion on Singleplatform.com.

When you go to Claim this Menu you'll see that the service costs anywhere from $99 to $149 a month. We didn't do a lot of research on what else you get for the money but having Google force businesses into this paid option with no way to remove this third party link once it's in place is another reminder that you do not own your Google My Business listing.

Right now, the reports we've seen as well as our own research are all focused on the home services industry, which Google has been making big strides into with their Google Local Services project, which was formerly Google Home Services. This also seems to be limited to specific cities, which have Google Local Services active.

• Strategy --> The only way we can see to protect yourself from this is to fill our your services menu within Google My Business.

  

  We recommend you do this regardless of your industry. Just because Google is focused on the home services industry doesn't mean they won't tu...