Avoid Missing Out on Bookings with Reserve with Google

9th May 2019

Reserve with Google, “what on earth is that?” you may be thinking, and you’d be correct to have your doubts. In short, it’s a completely new concept that has been rolled out by the king of search engines themselves. In their own words, “Reserve with Google is a feature that allows you to use Google Search, Maps or the Reserve with Google website to make bookings or purchase tickets with local businesses.”

To be able to make bookings through Reserve with Google, your business needs to be set up with the correct Google Partner that can be integrated with this feature. It’s possible to integrate with various Google Partners, all you need to do is select the one that provides the simplest and most effective booking system for you.

You may have questions about why Google is introducing this new tool to their search engine and the impact this will have on your business, so we’ll provide you with a comprehensive run down of what this means and how you can use it to your advantage.

What do I need to know about Reserve with Google?

Reserve with Google is a feature for users to make bookings with any business that takes bookings. This includes hair salons, restaurants, gym classes, spas, accommodation and much more.

For our clients, such as Garner Hair, this will enable customers to make bookings and appointments with the business outside of opening hours when there is no one in the salon to answer phone calls or respond to bookings made directly through the website.

On top of this, Reserve with Google predominantly operates through the Maps local listings and the ‘book’ option will appear within these. Therefore, if you’re using Reserve with Google for your business, the likelihood of your business appearing in the 3-pack listings is high. As most of you will know, these 3-pack listings often appear above the organic search results, capturing the 60% of users that click the top three organic search results, and as a result increasing your traffic and conversions if you don’t currently sit in the top three organic search positions.

Will this make my website redundant?

At the moment, Google claims that Reserve with Google is only an addition to work alongside your current online presence and to boost your local business. To reassure sceptical website owners, Google will be including the website in the top information to make it transparently clear to those who wish to book through the website.

In hindsight, it makes sense that this would only be an addition to your website as most of these services require further research into the treatments, classes, accommodations available before making a final decision. Therefore, providing a user-friendly website with relevant and rich information is still required to create a clear message about what you do and why you’re the best option for the customer.

How can I appear in Reserve with Google?

There are few requirements, aside from having to integrate with a Google partner that has the specialist booking system you would need, that need to be met in order to be featured in Reserve with Google. However, they’re extremely easy to do and will have you up and running on the new Google feature as soon as possible.

1. Set up a Google My Business listing
2. Ensure your Google My Business listing is verified

For now, businesses are not being charged for listing their business with Reserve with Google, meaning that you can increase your bookings and be ahead of the competition for no extra cost. Whether this will change in the future is still unknown as there is potential for Google Partners to take a commission out of any bookings that come through Reserve with Google.

However, whilst this feature exists without a charge, it seems silly for any of the contending industries to not take advantage of the possible extra bookings and opportunity to sit above the top organic results.

To find out more information about how Reserve with Google would work for your business, select the correct Google Partner integration for your business and you should find FAQs on their site in regard to this.

Our digital marketing team are always researching and reading up on new and creative ways to increase your conversions and improve your position in the search engine results. If you would like to find out what we could do for your business, contact us on 01603 859007 or fill out our online enquiry form below.