One thing that a lot of businesses rely on for marketing today is Google My Business (GMB). This is both foolish and risky because any issue you face here could mean an end to your business. For instance, when your listing gets suspended your business will no longer be visible in Google Search or Maps. Unfortunately, you may not even know why you were suspended. There are some common reasons you should know about though.
Issues with Your Address
These are some of the most common GMB suspensions. This is especially true today when there are a lot of businesses operating out of a home. Google doesn’t want to list your home as a business location and when they catch you doing so they’ll suspend your listing.
Having a Virtual Office
You may also have an issue with your Google My Business being suspended if you rent out a virtual office or a co-working space because you can’t use these addresses in your listings either. The only time in which the rule is different is if you lease a dedicated or executive office therein. If this is the case, you must also have permanent signage in the lobby, a dedicated suite number, and employees in the office during business hours.
In this case, you have a few options. The safest and best option to bring yourself back into compliance with the GMB would be to find a new location for your office. If there’s a dedicated space where you’re already located, you may not even need to move very far. Once you take care of this you’ll need to file an appeal with Google My Business in which you provide:
- A copy of your lease
- A video of you walking into your office
- Pictures of the office directory with your listing, dedicated office door signage, and business signage inside your office lobby
Making too Many Edits to Your GMB at Once
Sometimes you may feel as though working on your Google My Business listing is too much of a hassle. You may be tempted to do all of your edits at once but this may trigger a suspension. While nobody knows why this happens, Google may see this as suspicious activity. This is why you should only do a few edits at a time.
Changes Happening Around You
There may be an occasion upon which your Google My Business has been suspended for no apparent reason. It could even be that Google has made some small changes inside of your dashboard that’s triggered the suspension. When you think this has happened you should carefully read through the guidelines to ensure that you’re within compliance. One thing that you need to also remember here is that Google has been set up to help local businesses so if your business is online only you don’t qualify for GMB.
Other Common Reasons
There are a lot of other different reasons why your Google My Business account may be suspended. If none of the other things apply to you, take a look through these:
- Someone may have reported your listing because they believed that you violated something in the Terms of Service (TOS).
- Your listing’s manager may have violated the TOS and had all of their listings suspended.
- Instead of using your business’ proper name, you may have engaged in keyword stuffing there. Any form of keyword stuffing or spam that happens more than once can get you in trouble here.
- It’s possible that someone reported your listing as spam or said that it “doesn’t exist.”
If you need help managing your GMB, contact the Local SEO Tampa Company in Tampa Bay, FL.
