How to Use the Q&A feature on Your Google Business Profile

Learn how to manage the Questions & Answers feature of your Google Maps listing.

By now, you may have already heard about all the important features offered in Google My Business to help optimize local listings and improve local search rankings for businesses. Google allows you to publish posts and photos, add business descriptions, manage reviews, and even list out services and products.

One Google My Business feature that is often overlooked is the Questions & Answers (Q&A) feature. Located below the general location and contact information in the Q&A section of the Knowledge Panel. The content within the Google Q&A section is essentially generated by users.

To get the most from the very beneficial Q&A feature, it is best to keep the following in mind so you can use it to your best advantage.

1. Control the conversation with users.

Crowdsourcing can be intimidating for business owners because they’re allowing the customer to lead the conversation. To have more control over this, it is a good idea to be proactive and get out in front of them by posting your own questions. Publish genuine, realistic and frequently asked customer questions. When you anticipate the questions that are asked, you can build up a good source of information and are also giving quality questions an opportunity to be upvoted over time.

2. Use upvotes to your advantage.

Upvoting the questions will improve the way they appear in your Google business listing. Every business has a handful of their most important FAQs and if the question has a helpful answer, then they are more likely to be upvoted by users on Google. Before they are upvoted, there will only be a link to view all Q&A, like the first image below. Once a Q&A is upvoted a number of times, it will expose the Q&A without having to click to view all, like the second image below.

Before Upvoting

After Upvoting

3. Be the first to answer.

Anyone can ask questions and provide answers. It’s always best if the business owner responds and answers the questions first as other customers might provide incorrect responses. Just like reviews, where unhappy customers can leave negative comments, the Q&A section allows unhappy customers to answer questions with a negative opinion about a service or product. Therefore, it’s always best to see the owner’s response first.

4. Leave no room for spammers.

Additionally, business owners should avoid using generic responses like “yes” or “no”. Users are able to go back and edit their questions, even after the question has been answered. For example, a user could ask a car dealership, “Do you have financing available?”, and if the dealership responds with only “yes”, then the user could edit the original question to “Is your dealership under investigation for fraud?” It’s best never to leave room for spammers, so answering with complete sentences will help.

Get Started with Google Q&A

Getting ahead of Google Q&A also means staying on top of it. dbaPlatform’s managed services can help with that. In addition to monitoring and managing the Q&A section, dbaPlatform’s Google My Business management will also help with all of the other advantageous Google My Business features that are available. dbaPlatform will publish posts and photos every week, manage and monitor reviews, and more. Keeping all of this information up-to-date is crucial for marketers and advertisers, which can be a daunting task – especially for multilocation businesses or advertising agencies with many clients.

Schedule a demo of dbaPlatform to learn more about how it can help you get more traffic and engagement with a perfectly optimized Google My Business listing.