Google Business for Escape Room Owners

Google Business allows escape rooms to manage their online information, including their website, phone number, address, and hours of operation.

By creating and optimizing a Google Business profile, businesses can increase their visibility in Google search results and on Google Maps.

This is especially important for local businesses that rely on customers in their area (like escape rooms).

Let’s take a look at Google Business Profile and what you should be focusing on as an escape room owner.

Google Business Owns Your Brand

When anyone Googles your brand name, your Google Business Profile takes up the entire page on mobile. Check out the following screenshot… it’s entirely owned by a Google Business Profile.

Let’s take a look at what to focus on when it comes to Google Business.

What to Keep an Eye On

We do not recommend outsourcing these to anyone who is not on your payroll.

Daily:

• Responding to direct messages (this should be hooked up to your phone through the Google Maps app and be prepared to respond as soon as possible)

Weekly:

• Customer Photos
• Responding to reviews
• Update profile information

Setting Up Your Profile Correctly

A lot of a Google Business profile is fairly straight forward and comes down to keeping it up to date. Give your GB profile an audit and make sure the following is complete:

• Up to date location and hours of operation
• Up to date contact information
• Up to date logos and images
• All miscellaneous information is up to date (Accessibility, Amenities, Crowd, etc completely filled out)

Key Google Business Settings:

Let’s delve into a couple important settings that can help you optimize your Google Business profile in the escape room industry.

A Keyword Rich Description

A keyword rich description in your Google Business profile is crucial for optimizing your online presence. This description should be concise, informative, and include relevant keywords that customers might use to search for your business.

By including keywords related to your business, you increase the likelihood of your profile appearing in relevant search results.

A clear and informative description can help customers understand what your business offers and why they should choose you over competitors.

Setting the Business Category

Setting the business category to "Escape Room Center" as the primary option is an excellent way to optimize your Google Business profile for this type of business.

This ensures that your profile appears in relevant search results and that your business is accurately represented online.

Remember to select additional categories that apply to your business to make your profile as comprehensive as possible. We recommend “Amusement center” as a good second.

Add Products

An often overlooked aspect of Google Business Profiles are the services. This provides a lot of context for Google and has shown to improve rankings.

This part of the platform is consistently changing so the best way to find out how to add services is to follow Google’s support article: https://support.google.com/business/answer/9455399?hl=en

When configuring your services make sure you have the following inputted:

• An image
• Product Name
• Category (Escape Rooms)
• Product Description
• Product Landing Page (if you have one)

Should I be Posting Updates to my Google Business Profile?

If a digital platform has the feature, you are most likely going to be rewarded in some way for investing into it. This is true for Google Business Profile “posts”.

With that being said, the way you should be thinking about it is whether or not the marginal gain from posting is worth the time or money to do so.

If you have time the time to post an update, then go for it.

But - collecting reviews and responding to messages matter much more than posting updates on this platform if you have to choose what to focus on.