Red and orange leaves crunch underfoot. The first winter storm has come and gone. Christmas is just around the corner.
It’s that time of the year again! It’s time to update your holiday hours in Google My Business.
Store hours tend to change around the holidays. Maybe you’re running on special seasonal hours. Maybe you’re shutting down for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Either way, you want your customers to know when they can pay your business a visit. The last thing you want is for someone to show up for some last-minute holiday shopping only to find out you’ve closed early.
Luckily, Google My Business (GMB) makes it easy to change your settings to reflect your modified holiday schedule. You can even set your holiday hours in advance. Here’s how:
- Sign in to Google My Business, and click on the location you’d like to manage.
- Click the “Special Hours” section. (Note that you’ll only see this section if you’ve already set regular hours for your business.)
- You can either click “Confirm Hours” next to an upcoming holiday or click “Add New Date” to change your hours for a different day.
- Enter the opening and closing times for that day.
- If your business will not be operating on that day, slide the circle to “Closed.”
- If you’re open 24 hours, click “Opens at,” and select 24 hours from the drop-down menu that appears.
- For two sets of special hours on the same day (for example, if you are open in the morning, close for lunch, and reopen in the afternoon), enter them in separate rows. Click “Add Hours” to add an additional row of hours.
- When you’ve finished entering all of your special hours, click “Apply.”
- That’s it! Your special hours will now appear to Google users on the designated days.
It’s a good idea to confirm your holiday hours even if they’re the same as your normal hours. If you don’t confirm your holiday hours, Google will automatically warn users that the location’s hours may differ from normal hours, and they may assume that you’ll be closed.
To give your customers a head’s up about your temporary schedule, you can also post to social media or create a Google Post with all your holiday information.
So, grab some hot chocolate, crank up the Christmas music, and update your GMB special hours. Remember, if you need help managing your GMB local listing, our local SEO team over at Michaels Wilder is here to help.
Happy holidays!