Just like with many businesses, summer brings different business hours. Take a look at tourist areas as an example. Local shops will be open longer to accommodate more tourists throughout the longer days. If you are altering your hours for your business for the summer season (or any for any reason or time of year, for that matter) it’s time you make sure you update your Google Business hour listing.
On Thursday, Google launched gybo.com/summer, which allows businesses to quickly check how their Google My Business listing is displaying, including whether they are currently open or closed.
According to a small business survey that Google hosted in June, a quarter of small business changed their operating hours during the summer. But Google My Business showed only 1 percent of those businesses adjusted hours on Google My Business since Memorial Day of this year.
Obviously, this is a problem. With over half of all customers (52 percent) using search to look specifically for business hours, and even more using search to obtain info about local purchase opportunities, it’s critical that your summer business hours reflect in local business listings.
If you didn’t know yet, when it comes to switching on summer hours in Google My Business, the option isn’t automated. So it’s imperative that you make your updates as soon as possible. If you do make a change to summer hours, make sure you set them back when fall comes around.