A Short Name for Your Google Listing

A link that used to be a mess

Until recently, the usual way to send somebody to your Google listing was a long address full of numbers and symbols, copied from a browser and pasted somewhere it would wrap across three lines.

Nobody printed it, and nobody could type it. So most businesses told customers to search for the name, and hoped the right listing came up.

Google My Business has now added short names. A verified listing can claim one, and with it a short link: g.page, a slash, and the name you chose.

It is a small feature. It fixes a problem nearly every business with a listing has had.

Where the link earns its place

• Business cards, beside the website address rather than instead of it.
• Receipts and invoices, printed or emailed after every job.
• Email signatures for everyone who writes to customers.
• Review requests, by email or on a card handed over.
• Your website's contact page, for directions and opening hours.
• Packaging and takeout bags, which a customer still has in hand later.

The fourth is the one that changes behaviour. Asking for a review used to mean explaining how to find the listing; now it means handing over a link that opens the place to write one.

The review link

Adding /review to the end of the short link opens the review form directly, rather than the listing.

That removes the steps where willing reviewers used to give up: searching, picking the right listing among similar names, and finding where the review button was.

Send the same link to every customer you ask, not only the ones you expect to be pleased. Google's rules prohibit asking selectively for positive reviews, and offering anything in return for one.

Ask in person first where you can, and send the link afterwards as a convenience rather than a campaign.

Choosing a name customers can type

The name has to be unique across Google, so the first choice may already belong to a business with a similar name somewhere else.

A good short name is brief, easy to say over the phone, and spelled the way people expect. Read it aloud to somebody and ask them to type it; any hesitation is a problem.

Avoid characters that look alike, such as a lowercase l and the number 1, and joins that double a letter, where nobody can tell whether there should be one or two.

If your name is common, adding the town or neighbourhood often makes it both available and clearer, at the cost of a few more letters.

Matching what is already printed

The short name will sit beside your website address, your email address and your social media handles. If each uses a different version of your name, customers have four things to remember instead of one.

Where possible, choose a short name that matches the handle you already use elsewhere, or the first part of your domain.

That consistency is not just tidiness. A customer who half-remembers one address can guess the others.

If your handles already differ, decide now which version you will settle on, and move the others towards it as things are reprinted.

A worked example

A takeout pizza place on a busy corner shares its name, a common surname followed by the word pizza, with restaurants in several other cities.

Its first choice of short name was taken. Its second, the name with the town attached, was available, but long enough that the owner doubted anyone would type it from a receipt.

The owner settled on the name plus the street it sits on, which was shorter and already how regulars referred to the place.

The link went onto the receipts and a sticker on every box, and the review link onto a small card that goes into each delivery bag.

The website's contact page got the plain link too, for anyone looking for directions or hours.

The counter staff were shown how both work, so they could answer when a customer asked what the link on the box was for.

What it does not do

A short name is a shortcut to the listing. Nothing suggests it moves the listing up in search, and claiming one is not a reason to expect more calls.

Its value is in the places customers already are: holding your receipt, reading your email, deciding whether to leave the review they promised.

And it points to the listing, so the listing has to be worth arriving at: hours correct, photographs current, recent questions answered.

Nor will it fix a listing in the wrong category or with the wrong address. A shortcut to a wrong listing just gets people there faster.

Setting it up

The short name is set in the listing's information in the Google My Business dashboard, alongside its hours and address. The listing must be verified first.

It may take a little time to start working after it is chosen. Test the link, and the review link, on a phone before anything is printed.

Then print. A box of business cards carrying a link that does not work is an expensive way to find out.

Write the short name down with the listing's other details, so whoever manages the listing next knows it exists.

And once it works, keep it. Every reprint, and every old receipt in a customer's drawer, depends on the name staying the same.

The counter-case

A business whose customers already find it by name, without confusion, gains less from a short name than one with a common name or a hard spelling.

A business without a verified listing cannot claim one at all until the listing itself is sorted out.

And a short name is no substitute for your own website address, which you control, and which will outlast any feature Google adds or removes, as the closing of Google+ last month showed.

Where customers need to reach your listing, though, claim the short name, choose it with care, and print it wherever customers hold something of yours.

This week

1. Check the listing is verified and current.
2. Read your preferred name aloud to someone else.
3. Claim the short name in the dashboard.
4. Test both links on a phone.
5. Add the link to email signatures.
6. Print it on receipts and cards at the next run.
7. Send the review link to every customer you ask.

Step two is the one that decides whether the rest works. A link people cannot spell from hearing it, or type from reading it, will sit on every card unused.

What customers add to the listing once they arrive is covered in photos on your listing posted by customers.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.