Accurate business hours on GMB are essential for customers looking for your services. In fact, according to some recent surveys, incorrect business hours are one of the top reasons customers lose trust in businesses.
Updating your business hours for the holidays is straightforward. All you have to do is log in to your Google My Business account and click Info & special hours.
Update Your Regular Hours
Keeping your business’s operating hours up to date is critical. Nothing is more frustrating for a customer to look up your business on Google, plan their trip, and arrive only to find that the shop or restaurant is closed. Updating your Google My Business holiday hours should be one of the first things every business does to ensure customers get accurate data they can depend on.
In the info tab on your Google Business Profile, click the ‘Add hours’ icon, represented by a clock. Select the days your business is open, and enter each day’s opening and closing times. You can also use the ‘More hours’ option to add additional services that you may offer, such as a specific lunchtime for your business.
Once you have updated your operating hours, click the ‘Save’ icon. Your business’s new operating hours will appear on your Google Business Profile and Maps Listing.
While it’s fairly easy to change your regular business hours, it can be more challenging to remember to update them for holiday closures or special events. Accurate information is critical to building trust with potential customers and ensuring they can reach you at the right time. It’s a good idea to set your clients’ holiday hours early, as they may need help to make the changes themselves once Google has reviewed them.
Update Your Holiday Hours
Often, customers want to know more about a business before they visit. One of the things they look for is their listed hours. It’s a significant factor that affects whether they can go there. (Source: Search Engine Journal)
This is why your clients must ensure their Google My Business Profile is up-to-date with their current hours of operation. This is especially true around holidays when they are closed or operating on a different schedule than usual.
It’s always frustrating for a customer to look up a restaurant’s hours on Google and find out they are closed when they arrive in person. Your clients can avoid disappointed customers by setting their holiday hours in advance on their GMB page.
To set your holiday hours, log in to your client’s GMB account and click “Edit profile” followed by “Business information” at the top. From there, you can confirm suggested holidays or add a date to set special hours. For dates you already have on record, you can edit them by selecting the pencil “Edit hours” icon next to each date. You can also mark your store as Closed or Open for a specific period. This is helpful for businesses that offer local delivery or in-store pickup services, which operate on a different schedule than their primary operations.
Review Your Hours
The information you provide about your business to Google is used to make suggestions to searchers and is often the first thing they see on your business profile. Keep these suggestions up to date so that current and potential customers can easily find out when you are open and closed.
One piece of data used to inform searchers about your business hours is whether or not you are open on certain holidays. You can set your holiday hours by navigating to the overall listing of your business and clicking the “hours” tab. On the right side of the screen, you will see a list of upcoming holidays, and for each day, you can slide the button to ‘closed’ if you are closed or leave it blank if you are open.
You can also add special hours’ to let searchers know that your business will be open for a different period than usual. You can do this by adding special hours directly from the Google My Business dashboard, and you will see a new tab on your calendar. Once you have added your special hours, you can choose to confirm them, and they will show in the Local Pack, the Google Finder, on Maps, and your Business Profile.
Review Your Maps Listing
The holidays are a busy time for many businesses. So, keeping up with your GMB updates is essential so customers can find the necessary information. This helps to prevent frustration for shoppers who may need more accurate or updated information in search results.
To edit your hours, go to “Info” in the left sidebar of your dashboard and then select “Special Hours.” A box will appear with upcoming known holidays; click on the date and enter your business’s opening and closing times. You can also mark your business as closed that day (sliding the button left) or leave it open (sliding it right). Once you’ve made any changes, remember to click Apply.
If you have a holiday-related event or promotion, inform the community by posting an Event Post on your Google listing. You can add details like the event title, location, start and end dates/times and a call-to-action. You can even include a photo and link to your website for more information.
Keeping your Google listings up to date is critical for driving traffic, building trust, and creating a positive user experience. A recent survey by my company found that incorrect business hours are one of the primary reasons that consumers lose confidence in local businesses.
