10 Risks of NOT Claiming Your GMB Listing

A GMB listing is a customer’s gateway to your business on Search and Maps. If you spot a listing with your name on it but isn’t yours, you need to claim it. Ignoring it will have risks in the long run and could hamper the digital marketing goals.

These are the top 10 risks if you ignore your GMB listings.

1. No control over changes

What if a local guide mistakenly changed your operating hours and these changes, which were approved by the business owners, got made?

For Chester, Country Manager for GMB. This is one of the biggest risks that your business can take. Whenever there are changes made to that unclaimed listing, not only will you not be able to edit or approve the information, but this can lead to potentially misleading and a lack of confidence in your customers.

2. Can’t reply to reviews

Customers who review the GMB listing of your products and services don’t always expect a reply, but this helps increase the trust that the customer has in your brand and it can also turn them into loyal fans. Without feedback, you’re missing out on creating satisfied customers and handling the emotions of frustrated shoppers.

3. Anyone can claim your GMB listing

Yes, it really does happen— business listings would usually have the “Own this business” link next to “Suggest an edit,” which leads to two possible outcomes:

• Claimed listings will need access from the original owner.
• An unclaimed listing will contain a lightbox and prompt you to deal with the listing

Everyone can have access to these options, and therefore anybody has the opportunity to claim your listing.

4. Your Competitors can ‘hijack’ Your Business listing

Competitors may try to claim listings for their company and use the association to push their own agenda.

They might add in their contact details, website URL or completely change your entire business listing. Sometimes, they won’t change anything but simply prevent you away from claiming your Google Map Listing. Consequently, you will have fewer opportunities to reach out to your potential customers on Google.

5. Your Customers can post anything Inappropriate

There is nothing you can do to stop random people editing your business listing if you haven’t claimed it as yet.

It can be harder to take down inappropriate, misleading, or even offensive images or videos if they’re not owned by your listing because they won’t show up in your dashboard. Or you could always flag them as inappropriate but if you don’t own the item, it will get overlooked.

6. You Will Not Have Access To Third-party Tools

Third-party tools, like DigitalMaas, can enhance your experience managing your GMB listings. But you won’t get any tools or their benefits if you don’t claim it in the first place.

7. Your Listing May Disappear

Our local SEO expert, Kanwal Shahzad, agrees that if not claimed, you have a higher risk that this listing on Google Maps will be taken away from search results or just disappear altogether. When people realize that the information on a page is incorrect or hasn’t been updated, losing rankings until the page is removed altogether is very likely to happen.

8. You Will Lose Traffic

Claimed, verified and optimized GMB listing becomes a legitimate backlink to your website providing traffic and relevance when your customers search for your products or services online. Without your own listing, you’re losing out on the opportunity to get that extra traffic – both online and offline.

9. You can’t promote your business

Google has several features that can help you stand out in search results – from Google Posts to a better understanding of customers, clickthrough rates are always an exciting part of the Google My Business platform.

Google Posts, for one, enables you to write updates on offers, events, and changes to your operations with a link to your website. Posts have the potential to offer high clickthrough rates especially when your customer is ready to purchase.

Local businesses are currently paying Google to appear at the top of searches on the internet, putting advertisements next to organic search results. These advertisements aspect a square icon instead of a circle pin because they are coming from a digital medium and are aimed specifically at someone who is not explicitly looking for local services or what’s available in their area.

Without a claimed GMB listing, you might not have this option.

10. No Access To Google Maps Analytics

Businesses can track their campaigns and SEO on Google My Business and on third-party platforms like DigitalMaas, which allow businesses to measure how well their local campaigns are fairing.

For example, within the GMB manager, listing owners can see who’s viewed their GMB by searching for specific keywords related to their business. They can also see who’s clicked on their action links (Visit website, Get directions, Save listing Contact store) and even see where customers view their business more – on Search or on Maps.

On the DigitalMaas Platform, there are metrics you can use to analyze your marketing strategy and make informed decisions.

If you do not claim your listing, you don’t get access to the insights and you will lose the chance of converting these views and clicks to bonafide customers.

With all these risks and more, it becomes imperative that you should claim and verify your GMB listing. But how?

How to claim your GMB listing

Claiming your GMB listing can be either simple or tricky, depending on if it’s been previously claimed or not.

The simple part is, if no one’s previously claimed a listing, you’ll be prompted to start managing it.

When does it get complicated? You’ll find out when you get the message below.

In this case, you need to request access from the current primary owner.

Conclusion

When you don’t claim your GMB listing, you lose so much opportunity to convert views into customers who are already looking for businesses like yours. Beware of the risks of unclaimed listings and do your best to claim yours as early as possible. If you need help with claiming your listing, hire a Google Map Listing Expert here. See all the data and recommendations of all your locations in one dashboard. Rank your listing to #1 in search results.