Google has recently added a new feature to My Business profiles in the form of “short names”. These will act similarly to usernames on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. They will be searchable and taggable in the form of @business-name and also serve to enable much improved short URLs, i.e. g.page/tcweb/. This in turn gives us a simple link to pass on to drive Google reviews: g.page/tcweb/review, where before you would have had to deal with a lengthy URL or shorten it yourself.
We recommend that you head over to your My Business account now and claim your desired short name. As this is a global namespace your name can be taken by other businesses across the world with the same or a similar name. For example, @beaches-thai could be the name of a few restaurants, so if it was your restaurant you’d want to jump in and secure that short name for your business before others do.
Users will also be able to search businesses by short name in Google Maps, allowing them to quickly bring up a profile.
Whilst the full extent of the functionality of these short names isn’t clear at this stage, it’s always a good idea to get on board quickly these things to have yourself ready for the best use of new features.
Clients on managed SEO plans with TC Web need not worry about claiming their short names as we have already sorted it out for you.