Google Local Page Tip

It’s that time of the year to update the hours of operation on businesses Google local page for the holidays. While you’re at it, it’s a good idea to think about how to use those hours to your advantage.

Now this article is going to be geared towards those businesses who are based out of a home or don’t have customers dropping by the store. If customers come in to your business, then your hours are rather fixed and this tip won’t work for you.

If you work on a flexible schedule, however, this Google local page tip is quite clever. It works by expanding the range of hours that your business is available beyond any of the other competitors hours of operation.

Some people will try to put that they are open for 24 hours on these pages, but we all know that’s not possible. Remember we are talking about businesses that serve customers at their location and not necessarily drop by. Some stores will be open 24 hours, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

So rather than try to markdown that your business is open for 24 hours every day, 7 days a week, which we all know is not possible and not realistic, pick something more reasonable. So for example, all the web developers in the local area are usually open from 9AM in the morning to 5PM at night Monday – Friday with the weekends off.

One way that we were able to get more noticeable attention on these local business pages is by extending our hours of operation beyond the typical industry times. So for example, the time of opening for SkyPoint is 8AM and time of closing is 5:30PM Monday – Friday, which we are open 9.5 hours instead of the standard 8.

On Saturday the business is open from 10AM to 2PM when all of the other web design firms are closed. This is a powerful strategy because the page will be shown more actively and more prominently than other pages that are closed during those specific hours.

Also if it is being viewed during the hours all the other businesses are open for, there’s a psychological boost for the pages that have more hours available open. Think about the decision you make when choosing a bank. If that bank is open on Saturday for a small time window, you may choose that bank over a different bank that is closed on Saturday.

This is the strategy behind hours of operation arbitrage and it can be quite successful.