At Google I/O 2018, this Californian group has officially announced a new feature that can attract more consumers in your physical outlets.
The Affinity Score is a percentage that measures the relevancy between data given by institutions compared to the information that Google-owned about them. This feature is used to calculate the probability of a restaurant in pleasing its customers. This score is available on Google Maps and the usages may spread widely unto the Google search engine in the future, therefore it is particularly important to keep an eye for this feature’ development starting from now on.
In concrete terms, how does the Google affinity score work?
The users are able to provide additional details on the information collected by Google’ search engine and allow the algorithms to refine their suggestions. The mobile users can select the establishments that either they like the most or the least, and/or choose attributes that they usually look for in a restaurant. In this way, the affinity scores’ display will better represent their personal preferences.
Google will scrutinize the users’ actions to understand it as well as possible (also give notes related to restaurants, habits, culinary preferences, …). On the other hand, the search engine is analyzing the information provided by the restaurants on Google My Business listings to measure the concordance with the mobile user input. Consequently, it is particularly important to fill out all the options available in Google My Business and keep the information up to date. As an example, if your institution does not inform Google that your restaurant provides child equipment or gluten-free menus, Google will automatically exclude suggestions for all its users that filtered by these criteria.
What is the purpose?
For Google, the purpose is twofold:
- Value this opportunity by filling all the information on Google My Business platform (it will fit more easily into the users’ affinities).
- Facilitate the users’ choices and allow them to discover new establishments within the “Discover places” feature which will offer personalized suggestions according to their activities and preferences.
This feature is consistent with Google’s latest developments and encourages you to keep all your store information on your Google My Business listings.
To obtain the best result (printing, SERP classification, activations, …) You must dedicate the resources needed to integrate your information on the platform and keep them up-to-date continuously, otherwise, your online visibility will be reduced.
In addition, the use of other features, such as Google Posts, can boost your visibility and communicate better your messages to the end-users.
If you want to attract new consumers, dethroned your local competitors by gaining visibility on new or existing locations; in accordance with the Google offering news, today is the era of Affinity Score!
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