Google has added two new attributes for businesses listed in Google Business Profiles. These attributes are “identifies as disabled-owned” and “identifies as Indigenous-owned.” Google said, “When businesses choose to identify as disabled-owned and/or Indigenous-owned in their Business Profile, the attribute will appear on their listings in Maps and Search. This update builds on our existing business attributes, including Asian-owned, Black-owned, Latino-owned, LGBTQ+ owned, veteran-owned, and women-owned.”
The constant addition of attributes proves it is here to stay and something that users have grown to expect. Since their push in 2020, Google saw how reliable attributes have been in answering common customer questions about a business. Users will often pick where they visit based on its ownership and clientele, preferring to support visible members of their community. This makes the practice of including attributes a necessity, something that all business owners should always include in their listings. These attributes often come with unique icons on a business profile as well, or as justifications when businesses are featured on a search engine result page, making them highly desirable to have a professional looking and fully optimized listing.
What is always important to remember with new attributes is that any icon or label you can add to your Google listings will improve click through rates and drive additional traffic for queries that include that attribute. Whether the attribute is improving rankings on queries your business already qualified for or is deeming your business relevant to new queries, your listings will see more impressions. A Google listing that contains every feature available to it looks of greater trustworthiness, professionalism, and quality than those that do not. Whenever your listing can use a feature, it should, both to improve rankings and to see a higher click-through-rate within those rankings.