Does Google My Business Benefit Non-profits without Physical Locations?

You are wondering if you should set up Google My Business for your non-profit networking group that does not have a physical address. Let’s see what the experts have to say about that.

Automated Transcript:

Well, Tim asked a question In Absentia. And this is related to what I’ve literally been spending my day doing. He asks and Tricia you’re going to have an opinion on this to for a local nonprofit business, networking group. With no physical location. How would you recommend verifying listing for Google my business and address of one of the members, local businesses used for file an EIN to the IRS. This heard local business also verifies organization. It’s a mattress. So my answer which may differ from Trish’s answer probably not. Is why do you want a Google my business listing for a networking group with no physical location? I don’t know if that’s even necessary I get but that it’s a great way to appear in the knowledge. Graph. It really stand out and people search for you. But it’s not really what it’s for. You. Don’t necessarily have a phone number dedicated to that Network and group. You would have a duplicate address from an existing business. So then you do get into problems like Images phone number duplication, there’s two businesses businesses at that. One location. If they have the same phone number now, you could be hurting that businesses ability to get name address. Phone number citation, credits, in order to promote. What is not even really their business just out of Curry. And God forbid that business. That’s the host of this location leaves, the organization. So now we’re going to do with it. So maybe the answer is, I don’t know if you want to build a Google, my business listing in the process for Google, my business. Or when I called local listings. I do say, this isn’t for every business. So, curious ants, for example, although it’s technically based in my same location as reliable Acorn. I don’t have a Google my business listed for it because it’s a purely online. – and so I’ve made the option to not and that kind of gets into what I’ve been doing the rest of the day, but maybe trishul is to weigh in on this. Yeah, so I would agree. I have not seen and not heard this question about networking groups because one of the things is, I think did he, did you say he said that they are Incorporated? Yes. Okay, so that, that, that would be the start to it. Is that That they actually have incorporation and everything and that as far as being a networking group, if it’s allowed to have a Google my business. I’m not a hundred percent. Sure. I do actually want to ask that question with some people. So on the follow up with that. So I will follow up on that. But like you said, some businesses, e-commerce is not made for Google my business. So it’s really geared towards local which in networking group. Be local as far as the address. So he said they were using the same address as another person’s business. Did remind me. Did he say, they’re hiding the address or they’re showing me? I could not say, either one. He just said address of one of the members. Local businesses was used to file for the EIN with the IRS. Okay? Yeah, so so, okay. And so it sounds like went for some reason. I was thinking it was a home address, but it does sound like it’s a apple business address. So the one thing is, is if they do not have actually a physical presence there, like where they answer the phone there. They have office hours there. They need to hide their address on Google my business. That’s a good way to get your account suspended as if you have a show your physical location, but you don’t have signage outside. Don’t see people. People can’t just walk in and ask for you, and I doubt that they do be Networking group. So I would say hide the address and the other part, you know, that shouldn’t be that much of a problem if you have hide the address, but as far as I’m not sure that they really if they need a Google my business, if it’s something that is really appropriate for him. Yeah. I wonder if this is solving a bigger problem of, hey, how can people find our networking group? The answer is probably not Google my business. Yeah, the answer is probably you need a website and if you can’t afford a WordPress website, well, okay, do a square space one. We don’t really like Squarespace websites, but it’s better than nothing. Yeah. Yeah. All you need is a presence. I belong to a networking group, that had a weebly website. You think Squarespace is bad. Oh, are you doing is worse? Oh, yeah, it’s terrible. But Guess what? They’re the only you know, if you search for their group, they find it. That’s it. Yeah, right. The other thing I would think about is kind of its kind of related reputation management. See idea that stacking the deck of the search engine results with things about this space. So for instance, creating a Twitter account creating a LinkedIn. Yeah, group or page on social media. Yeah, so that when someone searches for the name of this networking group, there’s more things for Google to serve up, then just the website and that will fill out. For instance. Twitter’s are great for this Twitter. If Google shows the Twitter cards of all your recent tweets, you’re going to really stand out right? And so this kind of gets into the question of what I’ve been playing with all day, which is the idea of, can you appear in the knowledge graph when you don’t have a physical address? Like Curious ants or an e-commerce business. Can you appear in the right sidebar of a search result? That’s called the knowledge graph, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I usually say that again, I’m sorry you can but where he is. So now, when you’re saying that, are you talking about when you’re searching by name? Yes. Oh, yeah, because so I am not, I’m a service area Business Without address shown, and you type in your Biz Watchdog and I come up in the knowledge panel, right? But let’s say, curious ants or Amazon. Yeah. Amazons and extreme exception, right? Well, they’re different knowledge panel. So right, okay. They’re called than I do. But yeah, my business knowledge Pinos. Then there are others for other like, big corporations and other things as well. Yeah. I have a client. That’s a really big on Purely online business and like they have a Google my business listing but that’s not even. What shows up when you Google their brand because it’s not even relevant. I mean they do have an office and you can go in it’s under security, but you know, you can technically get in there and but that’s not really what they want people to do. I don’t really want people to come in point. Is that when you do a Google search, it shows their company lists, all their social media profiles and it’s more predominant. And I’ve been playing with the idea of how do you do that? Number one, way to do it is Wikipedia page. Yeah, that’s tough because you have to just one. Right? What’s that? If you can get one? Are they hard to like? Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. Wikipedia page. You really have to justify. You tend to really prove. You deserve one. So, you know, that’s a challenge. And even large, established companies have hard times justifying. It let alone like little old Curious ants, but there are other things Google uses to populate data and I’ve been playing with a couple of them this morning. Wikipedia is tough but Wiki data, what’s it called? Yeah, Wiki data. Is is another source you can act? It’s not a page its data. So you can create entities and say this entities is a kind of like a person. And this person has a gender and this person has a family name and this person was born in a certain place. And so you’re just kind of filling out data about an entity and in it all kind of pulls. So I’m playing with this. There’s other sources, like crunch bases. Are Great source for this especially if it’s a business that doesn’t have a location or is it virtual business? There’s other web sites that Google will pull data from and consolidate. And once you have enough a kind of a critical mass Google will Had you in the knowledge panel, also schema like website, schema in organization, schema is very important for that purpose as well. So making sure your website your homepage especially has the information about your corporation, your company will help that so this might help Tim to because maybe he doesn’t need a Google my business. Maybe you need they need a website. Maybe they a couple social media profiles. Maybe they need to make sure on their Site, whether they use WordPress or not. They have organization website schema to tell Google. Now just because you have that doesn’t mean you’re going to get it because you have to hit a critical mass and Google won’t tell you where that critical mass is. But that’s the starting point. Yeah. One thing I was thinking about what we were talking here was that Google does allow certain things like events to have a Google my business, but only in certain instances. Just like if it’s like a specific thing, like, let’s say a yearly or monthly thing, and it’s been around for a while. So it, like, it can’t be like, you know, oh, this is the first annual XYZ event, you know, it’s got to be a couple years old in constant at the same location. So based on that. I’m wondering I’m going to follow up and do a little research because I’m interested it. Most working groups, you know, don’t really incorporate and don’t or maybe they do but they don’t really think about doing a Google, my business. So it hasn’t come up as a question before so I’ll check and see what I can find on it. Great. Thank you. Yes.