Creating the Perfect Services List for Your Google Business Profile
For businesses that provide local services in a geographic area, you get to define your business to google in two ways, the first is the selection of your primary business category (or categories) and the second way is by adding a list of services you perform that relate to each category.
Leaving aside the discussion of the pros and cons of having more than one category we are just going to focus on what you should list as services related to that category.
What Services should you add to your Google Business Profile?
Let’s start with the ones listed on your website, do you have a main menu pick that says “services”? Whatever is in that list, or on that drop-down menu, is the core of your service list. If someone were to simply ask you “what does your business do?”, AND you knew they knew something about your area of expertise but weren’t experts themselves, what would you say?
It’s important to differentiate what you call your services from how you describe your services to people who might be looking for them. Some of your potential customers may know all your industry jargon but others may only know it in general terms. You need to create a list that contains both the industry insider jargon and the laymen’s terms for it to cover the full spectrum of service descriptions. In many businesses this might not be an issue, but only using insider terminology may come to bite you as will become clear shortly.
So now you have a decent list of your services, and they should be “more verb than noun”, and also include the description people might have for you, the performer of the service. As an example, “auto mechanic”, the job title is the person someone is searching for and also implies the service they provide. That would go together with “car repair” which is an action. Let’s say that you also provided the service of “headlight polishing” to make faded plastic headlight covers clear again for safety reasons. You call it “headlight polishing” but someone outside the business might call it “headlight restoration”. You would want to have both of these listed as a service but NOT including “headlight polish” or “headlight polish kit” which are nouns, which imply the potential for a DIY product purchase versus engaging with you the service provider. The exception to the “noun rule” would be for the business itself if customers come to you so “Nail Salon” and “Car Repair Shop” should be included when that is where the service is provided.
So you have your list of what you call your services and what others might call it, so that should be all there is to it right? Well, that’s the minimum and I can guarantee you it’s likely very incomplete.
You need a larger list of services than you think.
Why? Because people use many more variations of search terms than you might think, even when they are looking for the same thing. But even more importantly, Google is trying to find exact or near matches in this list to fulfill the intent of someone searching for what you provide.
After google looks at the search query and determines that the searcher is looking for a local business (so they are going to serve up a result page with a 3-pack and a map) they are going to compile a list of businesses in the area that match the query. They are going to do it in order of your primary service category, your location relative to the searcher, your number of reviews, and overall rating, and THEN they are going to look for an “enhancement” for adding you to the list in the position you end up in. The exact formula for all of this is top secret inside of google BUT you know that they are trying to provide the best results they can, based on what they know about you.
These “enhancements” show up in the 3-pack and on the map under your primary info. Services from your list appear as a circle with a checkmark in it followed by “Provides:” and then the service you added that Google feels is either an exact, best, or near match semantically.
There are four enhancements in general – services, website mentions, review quote snippets, and post snippets. The pecking order of these enhancements is more or less in the order listed here with services seeming to be the first place Google looks.
These enhancements impact the final order of companies in the 3-pack and on the map. The goal is to make sure your enhancements are comprehensive enough that, were you to go the extra mile and really break things down for google, it would benefit you both. You do that by fully describing what you do on your website, in your service list, and in the text of your posts. The reviews containing service terms are much harder to control but because they are provided by former clients they do contain legitimacy.
You can test this yourself by searching for something with a vague search phrase like “landscaping near me” and then seeing how the results shift when you try again with the search phrase “shrub planting near me”. This will alter the order and ranking of the companies from the original list and if you cover more bases with a large list of services you can benefit from improved ranking. Just keep thinking in terms of getting from position 4 on the map to position 3 where you are then in the 3-pack on the main search results page – that’s the goal.
Where can you get the biggest service list possible?
We started on your website, we added in your own personal list from memory and now it’s time to do some digging. Let’s start with your competitor in your area and also outside your area. Use a cell phone and perform a very general search for your service like “lawyers” with either “near me” or “in Memphis, TN” (or wherever location you like). You will get a set of results on a search page, go to where the 3-pack is shown and click on where it says “more businesses” below the third result. You will now have the map list, any company you click on will force their Google Business Profile’s knowledge panel to pop up. Only on mobile, you will see a menu button under the company name that says “services”. Click that and you will see their entire list of services. You can see if you offer any of them so that you can add them to your list. Go through a good number of searches and you will probably double your list fairly quickly. At this point don’t worry about the written descriptions that some people may have added. You will likely find a mix of services with and without written descriptions.
It’s a good idea to later go back and add descriptions to the list of services but try to keep them to 120 characters or less because above that the searcher sees “…more” and if they click it they cant re-collapse it and it makes it harder for the searcher to see your full list of services with brief descriptions.
The next place to get some service list items is from Google Search Console if you can look at the queries people used to find you. Always remove location info and the phrase “near me” and see what’s left.
An even better place is to look at the insights tab on your own listing in Google Business Profile and click on the button near the top that says “see new profile performance” – by the time you read this though it may have completely replaced what is there now. On the new page, you will see a window with charts you can view but if you scroll inside that window a bit you will see (on the right inside the window) a list of search terms people have used to find you. Go through that list and see if you can expand your list with what is in there because these are the search terms that we absolutely KNOW resulted in a local search page being served up by Google.
For agencies, if you run an agency that has multiple clients that are geographically separate but in the same exact category, you can take the same search list described above and combine it with other clients’ lists to get a very, very broad list.
How many services should you add?
Considering that the services are a bit like search terms or keyword phrases you want “the full set” that covers everything you really offer, only what you offer, stated in every way that someone would search for it in your area. It’s not unusual that some businesses just treat this as a checkbox item and add fewer than 10 services (we do hair AND nails so that’s two!) but you are ruining your chances to hit a bullseye and edge up in the results because you are indicating a high-quality match to the searcher’s intent (which google wants anyway!) if you have “the full set” that is true and complete. Google is fine with you adding over 100 services to your list and doesn’t specify a limit. It’s not unusual if your list runs into the 100+ range if you get granular enough and offer a large variety of services.
Putting your Profile’s Services list together
Step One is going to be deduplication of your list and you want to make sure to also remove the following:
- Locations – don’t add “roof repair in Akron” google already knows the “Akron” part
- Don’t include “Near Me” either
- Don’t include “Best” like “Best car detailer” – Google will throw your whole list of service additions out the window if you add that even though that’s what people typed in when they searched for you.
Google Business Profile Services information lists other things to avoid as well.
Your list should read exactly like a list of services – like if you read them out loud they would sound like a service someone would perform or like they are describing the performer of the service. You want to have both “exterior house painters” and “exterior house painting”. This covers searches for the provider as well as what is being provided, again, it’s actors and actions versus items or products so “fence stain” is a product sold in a store anyone can buy to stain their own fence but ‘fence staining” and “fencer stainers” are services.
A test you can perform right at this point would be to make a series of google searches for services you have on your list that are popular but not in your service list yet. Do a search like “muffler repair in Dayton Ohio” where you replace “muffler repair” with one of your services and “Dayton Ohio” with a town that is next to the one your business is listed in. Then look on the map and see where you ranked – move far enough out so you are coming up but not in the first three results, find where you are on the map list below any ads, are you #6 on the list? Perform that same exact search after you add the service that you included in the query. Give it a day for Google to chew on (but you might see nearly instant results) you likely will see google list the service as an enhancement and you will likely rank a few spots better as well.
Step two (if you have never added services before) You will be given a list of basic services to add, which may be on your list. Go ahead and click the plus symbol to add them. You can then start adding custom services. At the bottom of the services box it should say “Don’t see a service you offer? Create your own”. Click “add custom service” and then add one in, if you scroll down a bit before doing anything you will see another “+ add custom service” link, you can add a good 6-10 of them before hitting the save button and this speeds up the process of adding them.
Step two (if you have already added some services over time) is to add the services by going to the services menu on your profile and clicking on “add another service”. Once you do that check and see if Google already loaded a bunch of possible services they created by crawling your website. They won’t let you do anything to the service list until you accept any list of orange-colored suggestions and the truth is that even if you haven’t accepted them Google has already started using them. Why? Because they need a supply of enhancement data to make their whole results list work well. Accept the list and then immediately delete the ones that you don’t already have in your list unless they look like a nice addition you haven’t already discovered. Just click on any one of them and when they pop open to let you add a description you can click the garbage can and delete them. At the bottom of the services box it should say “Don’t see a service you offer? Create your own”. Click “add custom service” and then add one in, if you scroll down a bit before doing anything you will see another “+ add custom service” link, you can add a good 6-10 of them before hitting the save button and this speeds up the process of adding them.
Note: Google might not take some of them if they are semantically identical in the mind of Google. If one of them fails to “stick” in the box it’s because google already thinks they have one that covers that service. This only happens rarely and only with the most general of services, just keep going down your list.
Step Three is to go back in a day or two to make sure they are all there and that Google has not then gone to your website and grabbed more terms to add, even ones you already deleted that were in their orange list before. Google only seems to do this when you add more services so if you had orange ones, deleted them, added new ones, then got more orange ones, just delete the orange ones and if you don’t further add anything then it should be stable. If all your added services are crossed out for some reason it’s because you didn’t follow step one closely and you added something like “Best Dentistry” and you tried to make it look like Google somehow is endorsing or favoring you. Remember Google is adding “Provides:” in front of the service enhancement so Google isn’t going to want to display “Provides: Best Dentistry” like they chose you over everyone else.
The final result should be that you are ranking better on the map and in the three-pack than you were before you added the services. Some of the services you add might be ignored by Google or Google may choose another service higher in the list than even a direct match depending on how they semantically pair words and phrases by meaning. There is going to be a bit of vagueness with all things SEO but keep these two things in mind – Google wants you to add as complete a service list as you can so long as you truly provide what you say (and you don’t want the wrong traffic anyway) and searchers are going to value (and click through at a higher rate) an exact match shown in the “provides:” field because that’s exactly what they just asked Google for, even if you aren’t in the #1 spot. More services equal more exact matches, and everyone wins!
Don’t have time to dig all this up and put it together? GBP Pilot does! Call us today and let us tell you more about the difference between trying to do this in-house or paying a swiss-army-knife agency for a basic service list versus having the Google Business Profile experts at GBP Pilot create the ultimate list that generates increased ranking and revenue for you.