Google My Business Enterprise Audit
Brian Walsh
Enterprise Google My Business Set-Up
During my time at City Experiences/Hornblower/ Entertainment Cruises (there were a lot of acquisitions during my time!), I worked to set-up and organize the organization's Google My Business Profiles which supported customer satisfaction and off-page SEO efforts for our local teams.
Company Profile
During my time at the company, the main offering was scenic dining cruises on iconic bodies of water. Over my three-year tenure, the offerings expanded into Canada, the UK, and Europe with other experiences as well, including national parks contracts.
Phase 1
Initially, the company (Entertainment Cruises) in 2019 only had locations in the in the continental US:
Baltimore
Boston
Chicago
New York/New Jersey
Norfolk
Philadelphia
Washington, DC
Potomac Water Taxi
Alexandria
National Harbor
For each of these cities, each boat/brand had a different Google Business Profile that was upheld locally, so they were missing consistency. Most of the vessels were also docked at the same "address" so they were being labeled as duplicates, confusing customers, and causing some listings to be removed as fakes.
During this phase, my focus was on ensuring that each vessel's listing on Google My Business was validated, had updated information from the local sales and marketing teams, and removing duplicate listings that former employees or competitors created.
Phase 2
When Hornblower Cruises acquired Entertainment Cruises, my role expanded to cover more locations, adding California and some Canada dining cruise locations to my remit:
Berkeley
Gananonque (1,000 Islands Canada)
Long Beach
Marina Del Ray
Newport Beach
San Diego
San Francisco
Toronto (Formerly Mariposa Cruises)
This also added a few additional lines of business that were interesting:
National Parks Services
Alcatraz City Cruises
Niagara City Cruises (Niagra Falls)
Statue City Cruises (Statue of Liberty)
Boston Harbor Cruises
Whale Watching
Provincetown
Cape Cod
Ferry
Hingham
Charlestown
Hull
Logan
Salem
This is the time that we realized that none of these locations were consistent with each other. I worked with the social media team, who oversaw our Yelp profiles to find consistency and consolidate the listings from vessel-based to ticketing-booth-based.
The Work
Reclaim any suspended/flagged listings
I coordinated with local teams to secure photographs of the physical locations, telephone confirmations, and postcard confirmations
Contacted Google My Business via phone (number now defunct) and email to submit claims against duplicate/false listings, and provide our proof of validation.
Facilitated communications between Google and our local teams to
Reinstate our falsely de-activated listings
Verify ownership of listings that we were locked out of from former employees
Establish new, correct listings
Consolidate listings from vessels to the location-based approach
Impact
This change allowed us to provide multiple experiences to customers from a single listing and let us use a single brick-and-mortar location for verification to remove the chances of the listing being flagged as fraudulent or duplicated.
The naming convention also influenced and aligned to how the website taxonomy was approached, with a focus by brand--> sub-brand -->city-->port/dock/ticketing booth which was much clearer for users to understand pre-purchase and when looking up directions to their experience.
Results
Customer Satisfaction:
Decreased day-of calls to our call center asking for direction clarity
Removed false/outdated information
Created a consistent enterprise experience across locations
Increased SEO presence
Vessel-based listings were no longer competing for the same address
Consistent naming conventions across other listing sites (Yelp, Trip Advisor etc.) for brand-building
