In December 2016, Google removed descriptions from Google Business Profile listings and replaced them with a new feature in the form of ‘attributes’. Although the description has now been reintroduced, attributes are also still listed and do, in fact, have a strong impact on your SEO! Let Partoo tell you a bit more about it

In practical terms, attributes are tags that characterize and describe your points of sale, such as ‘Good value for money, ‘Wi-Fi’, ‘Festive atmosphere’ or ‘Checks accepted’.

These attributes were originally not even visible to Internet users and therefore only affected the Google algorithm. Nowadays, however, attributes appear to users in two forms in the mobile version:

Not all attributes are available for all point-of-sale types and the rules change very quickly; the ‘Wi-Fi’ attribute, for example, will not be available for the ‘Bank’ category. Some categories, such as restaurants, will also have many more attributes to choose from than other categories of establishment.

To put it simply, a point of sale’s eligibility for an attribute will depend on two factors, namely the establishment’s categories and the country in which it is located. Generally speaking, the primary category has the greatest impact on eligibility where attributes are concerned. On that note, please don't hesitate to contact your Partoo Customer Success representative to put in place the best strategy for you and choose your categories (remember, you can have up to 9!)

Attributes serve two purposes within Google Business Profile. The first is to provide Internet users with further information before they visit your establishment, which is precisely why badges are displayed directly on the listing

The second purpose is ultimately the most important. Attributes are, in fact, mainly used to improve the Google algorithm to allow the search engine to return suggestions that better correspond to what the Internet user is looking for. This means that when someone searches for ‘Bar with Wi-Fi’ or ‘Pizzeria with terrace’, your establishment will have a better chance of appearing in the results if you have selected these attributes.

Attributes are therefore very much in keeping with the major trend we are seeing for voice searches, which are, of course, much longer and more specific than desktop or mobile searches. Internet users performing voice searches are, for example, no longer simply looking for a restaurant, but rather “a restaurant with a terrace for partying with friends and drinking good cocktails”, which, as luck would have it, covers 3 Google attributes! It is vital, therefore, that you keep your attributes up to date as voice searches become more popular, in order to optimise your SEO! Note also that adding attributes will help ensure that your listings appear naturally since Google will know that you are working on the issue and that your point-of-sale information is more likely to be up to date than that of your competitors

Attributes can be classified by type, with those attributes that can be edited by the owner because they are based on objective criteria appearing first:

Subjective attributes sometimes appear on your listing and depend on the reviews left by your customers, such as a "warm atmosphere". There are two types of subjective attributes:

While accessibility and payment attributes are available for almost all categories, this is not so much the case with offerings attributes. Generally speaking, a category will have between 5 and 30 attributes.

It is important to understand that an attribute can have several ‘statuses’ for a given point of sale. These are as follows:

An attribute can be changed in a number of ways, including the following:

Please read this article to learn how to manage your attributes via Partoo.

If you are not yet a Partoo customer and you need help managing your point-of-sale network, please feel free to make an appointment using the chat feature in the bottom right-hand corner.

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