GOOGLE MY BUSINESS DESCRIPTION

The What:
The Google My Business Description lives on the very bottom of your Knowledge Panel and allows you up to 750 characters to write what you wish about your business. You can use this space to add your mission statement, more information about your doctors, a generic overview of your hospital or anything else you see fit.

If you don’t add a Google Description to your Knowledge Panel, Google will say that your profile is 20 percent incomplete, which will affect your search ranking—profiles that are aren’t as complete will show up less often than profiles that are.

Sometimes, however, the option to add your Google Description is unavailable. Because we work so closely with Google, we can confirm that the Google Description option will only be available if you have your business appropriately categorized in Google Business.

For example, if a veterinary practice is categorized as a “veterinarian” but they also offer orthopedic surgery, they may think that it would be a good idea to also add a category of “orthopedic surgeon.” This confuses Google, and what happens is that they will not let you add a Google Description. To get around this, simply reduce your number of categories, and the Google Description option should appear.

Hospitals that have a Google Description also saw an 11 percent increase in the number of reviews over those that did not.

The How:
How to add a Google My Business description: Log in to your Google My Business account, click on the “Info” button on the menu bar and then look for a section labeled “Add business description.” Click on the pencil icon next to that field, and a menu will come up which will let you enter a brief description of your business.