The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.
Software dashboards are supposed to feel clean and quiet, organized so that everything you need to do good work is right at hand, like this:
Seeing the rebrand of Google My Business to Google Business Profile include the news that single location businesses will no longer enjoy the dignity of a room of one’s own because nice dashboards will be the sole province of more fortunate, large enterprises, it feels like SMBs are now being told (with indifference) to manage their listings here:
“Moving forward, we recommend small businesses manage their profiles directly on Search or Maps. To keep things simple, ‘Google My Business’ is being renamed ‘Google Business Profile.’...The existing Google My Business web experience will transition to primarily support larger businesses with multiple locations, and will be renamed ‘Business Profile Manager.’”
To wit, big businesses will be granted some version of the former Google My Business dashboard, with its helpful navigation and dedicated work areas, while SMBs must figure out what has changed[2] and try to manage their most visible local business listings directly in the messy SERPs, amid an astounding clutter of ads, organic results, SERP features, carousels, images, video results, and so on.
Perhaps it’s no big deal and local businesses desiring the organization of a dedicated listings management dashboard can rely on the Moz Locals[3] of the marketplace. Or perhaps it’s a turning point.
Maybe now is a critical moment in Google’s history to invite them to rethink this troubling pattern their powerful company has fallen into since they stepped into the lives of small business owners