The Questions and Answers section in your Google My Business (GMB) profile is a great (and free) opportunity to market your business. By strategically seeding your most frequently asked questions and providing answers, you can highlight your business offerings and help searching consumers make purchasing decisions faster.
However, Google does not currently make it easy for small businesses to seed questions and answers. Which is why we’re so thrilled to share the news about the Google Q&A Posting feature in our Perch app! If you don’t have Perch yet, click here to see how you can get it.
Perch now has Question & Answers functionality available right in the Perch Inbox, allowing local businesses to ask their own questions and provide the correct answers in one easy step. And with the app’s Inbox alerts, you can get notifications each time someone asks a question or answers one—something missing from Google My Business’s Q&A feature!
Here’s what you need to know about the cool new Perch perk, and some pointers on how to make the most of the Q&A on your Google My Business profile.
Why Seed Your Own Questions
With Google Q&A, anyone can ask and anyone can answer any question about any business on Google. This means you can be proactive and preemptively ask—and answer—the most popular questions for your business.
When you “seed” questions, you’re posting common Q&As to your profile helps potential customers know what to expect and increases their confidence in choosing your business.
Having this section populated makes your profile more informative, highlights your best features, and may even help it to rank higher in relevant searches.
How to Make the Most of Your Questions & Answers
With your Perch app set up, you’ve got easy access to the seeding Questions & Answers feature on your Google My Business profile and Inbox guidance to help you on your way.
Here are a few more pointers to get you started.
Seed Questions from Your FAQs
As customers call, email, and ask you questions face to face, take note of your most frequently asked questions. If they’re not answered on your GMB profile already, you should ask (and answer) these questions in your Q&A!
If you’re not sure about the most common questions for your business, you can get started with some of our recommendations. We analyzed thousands of profiles to understand the most commonly asked questions for each business category. Check them out here.
Hop into your Perch Inbox, set up a question and then answer before publishing it to your profile for customers to see.
Keep Responses Clear, Concise, and Timely
Nobody wants to read a long-winded response without a clear answer. When responding to questions on your Google Q&A profile, make sure your replies get to the point in a relatively abbreviated way, without leaving the customer looking for more or needing to do further research.
Your responses should be user-friendly and easy to understand by all potential customers who may read them. Concise and appropriate answers will help to optimize Google Q&A for your business.
You also want to keep your responses timely rather than letting a question sit unanswered for too long. Make sure your notifications are turned on and set up properly so you can keep yourself accountable, and make sure to answer customers as soon as you’re able.
Stay Engaged with Your Community
Not only should you be monitoring your own Google Q&A section, but you should also be paying attention to those of the businesses around you. Perch allows you to add competitors to your Watchlist, which tracks all sorts of social interactions and activity and compiles it for you in one news feed.
In addition to checking out competing brand activity, don’t shy away from engaging either. Review the Questions on the GMB profiles of other companies and “thumb up” correct answers and “thumb down” incorrect ones. This interconnectivity will help you to stay engaged with your local community and encourage them to do the same on your Google Q&A Profile.
Enable Perch Inbox Notifications
Unlike most programs, Google does not have easy, accessible Q&A notifications for new questions that post to a business’s GMB profile. But with Perch notifications keeping you abreast of every new Q&A interaction, you can answer the latest queries from your wondering customers in real-time.
Even with the proper alerts set up via Perch, it’s still a good idea to review your questions (and the rest of your profile) weekly. This regular quality assurance is also a great way to help you stay on top of any spam or abusive comments that you’ll want to report to Google for removal. And if you’re curious about Perch, click here to see how you can get the app.
