737: Helping Google Trust Your Pet Care Business with Amy Toman
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What does Google actually need to see before it trusts and recommends your pet care business? Amy Toman of Pet Sitter SEO joins us to explore how AI is changing Google Business Profiles, local search, reviews, photos, verification, and even phone calls to businesses. We discuss why consistency across your website, social media, directories, and Google listing matters more than ever and how experience, expertise, authority, and trust help establish your business online. Amy also shares important cautions about changing your Google Business Profile, dealing with missing or fake reviews, claiming 24/7 availability, and relying on AI-generated advice. We close with practical ways pet sitters can build a stronger digital presence without chasing every new SEO trend.
Main topics:
AI Changes Local Search
Building Google Business Trust
Managing Reviews and Verification
Optimizing Google Business Profiles
Strengthening Online Business Authority
Main takeaway: “The more Google knows about you, the more likely they are to recommend you or your business.”
Being found online is becoming about much more than stuffing the right keywords into a website. Google is looking across your website, Google Business Profile, social media, reviews, photos, services, directories, and other sources to understand who you are, what you do, and where you do it.
For pet care businesses, that means consistency matters. If you want to be known for dog walking, cat sitting, or another specific service, make sure your online presence actually demonstrates that expertise instead of simply mentioning it once.
In this episode, Amy Toman joins us to unpack how AI is changing local search and what pet sitters should be doing now to build trust, authority, and visibility.
The goal isn’t to trick Google. It’s to give Google enough consistent evidence to confidently understand and recommend your business.
About our guest: Amy Toman is the founder of Pet Sitter SEO and a Google Business Profile Diamond Product Expert who specializes in local SEO, Google Business Profile troubleshooting, and reinstatements. She founded Pet Sitter SEO in 2017 after beginning website work in 2015 and has worked extensively with pet care professionals to improve their online visibility. Amy has contributed to industry organizations, spoken at pet care conferences, and audited hundreds of websites and Google Business Profiles. Today, she continues to help small businesses navigate the increasingly complex relationship between local search, Google Business Profiles, and AI.
Links:
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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by our guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Pet Sitter Confessional, its hosts, or sponsors. We interview individuals based on their experience and expertise within the pet care industry. Any statements made outside of this platform, or unrelated to the topic discussed, are solely the responsibility of the guest.
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Welcome to Pet Sitter Confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we're brought to you by our friends at Timed Pet and Critter. We're really happy to announce that this episode is eligible for one CEU from both NAPS and PSI. So here's what you need to do: listen to the episode. Once you're done with that, scroll down into the show notes, and you're going to find a link to go take a quiz. Once you get that, you're going to get a certificate for completion. You're going to forward that on to either NAPS or PSI. SEO is one of those terms that gets thrown about, and it means more than ever to our business, and especially in the world of AI, and to talk about the relationship between those two things, there is not a single person on the face of this planet that is better to talk about this than Amy Tomen with Petsitter S E O. I don't even know how many other letters you have after your name, if with you assigned with Google and anything at this point, Amy. I will let you explain that you've been on the show several times, and each time is such an immense pleasure and honor. For those who haven't listened to those shows or haven't, you know, followed along, please tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you
Amy Toman 1:11
do. Okay, I'm Amy Toman. I started started working with Pet Sitters and SEO in 2015, so that makes us what 11 and a half years in it. I started in 2019 working with helping Google, helping people find the answers to questions about Google Business Profiles, and it kind of became an obsession. And now I do it enough that I'm like they they started giving badges out, and I'm the highest level badge person. A few weeks ago, they had us gather. We all went down to Mexico City the year before that in the fall. We were in Dublin, and I mean today I was on a phone call with Google. I'll be on a call with them on Friday, and I've just gotten I've gotten a lot of information. I was just saying before that Collin and I were having a conversation, and I said, "Well, somebody asked Google, and they answered me. So I went out and told everybody the answer to it. So it's it's kind of gotten to that point. I'm doing I'm doing a lot of troubleshooting with Google listings right now. It's cool.
Collin 2:23
What what's some of the biggest issues that you're finding in listings, or they're popping up more?
Amy Toman 2:27
Verification. A lot of people don't understand how to do verifications, especially if you're a service area business. But I mean, Google doesn't make it obvious how to do it either. But I would say the biggest one right now is verifications. Another one is reviews. A lot of people right now are getting either having having legit reviews removed or not getting fake reviews taken down, and it's really frustrating because Google doesn't make they don't make it obvious on either side either why they're keeping up something that you think is fake or why they are not taking down things that say an attack they're really good at noticing those right now but they don't notice all of them, so people get kind of upset. But then, you know, you say you have a bunch of legit reviews. You got a whole bunch of reviews in the past three days, and then you notice they're gone. There's a reason for that-that you're not supposed this thing you should not have done, and you did it, and Google found you did it, and that's why they took the reviews down. But people don't understand that because it's like unless you're paying attention to this like a lot, you don't know these things because it's not you know it's not walking dogs. It's not it's not you know working with all the local businesses to make sure they know that you're available. That it's not it's not online marketing to some degree. Some people think Google listings are set it and forget it, and over the past year, I really they're not, and that's that's a big deal.
Collin 4:16
Well, on the Google listing, how is I'd love to know, actually, Amy. How is Google using AI to start finding those kind of outliers or those cases? You know, because that's that's always been a question. People feel like it's such a black box to go. I don't know what's going on or why these decisions are being made.
Amy Toman 4:36
You know, I wish in terms of how they're doing it. I wish I knew. We all wish we knew. But what I'm finding is they're using it in what I consider to be interesting ways. Oftentimes, there there were two really good articles that I should probably have the links to that I don't have them right now. But they came out early this year. By a couple of women in the pet industry. One is sorry, in digital marketing. One does a lot with say restaurants and hotels. Another one is a writer, but she's been in this a long time, and they talk about different reasons that reviews come down. And I think that is something that Google has really been working on. They have gone out there and they said, "Okay, this is a sign of fake reviews, and so they set that up in the in the AI in the filter. So I think they're doing a lot with filters, looking out with AI agents going out looking for things that happen this certain way. Regarding reviews, I definitely think it's a thing. Appeals if your listing goes down, which which may have been may have gone down because of something in an AI agent. I don't know, but sometimes I think that the first time you appeal, they don't look into it as deeply as they should. So the first level, I don't know. Could they? I don't know the answer to this. The first level just sometimes seems just like to some business it just automatically says, "No, we're not accepting this. I mean, I know how to get it up to the level of humans looking at it, but I sometimes wonder if the first and second levels are just, you know, they they take a cursory glance, pass judgment, and move on. But they're also doing some cool things. They recently offered for businesses that control one listing, and it may have expanded. I'm not sure. You can now connect Gemini, Google's Gemini, which is AI. You know, it's an LLM to your to your listing to help manage it. I'd be careful with this because you don't want to do something really silly, but you can get a lot of like analytics insights in there. You know, am I being seen in this area? Things like that to some degree. You know, what are the what are the the terms that come up most in my reviews? Things like that. What services are are my services being mentioned in my reviews, things like that. That's really cool. Also, and I've been telling people this for a while, kinda. You want to have on your Google listing specific, yes, your website, website definitely, but also on your Google listing, you want to have photos of the services you provide. So I don't want to see on your Google listing if you walk dogs. I don't want to see pictures of dogs. I want to see pictures of you walking dogs, or you sitting with dogs, or you putting food out, or you know I'm saying doing some sort of interaction. Because what we have now seen, Google now categorizes everything it sees in a photo. Now, if you had asked me when I first started, what we used to say was, "You don't want to have a a photo. You want to make sure that your photo has what's called alt text, which tells Google what's going on in the photo. They don't need that anymore. They just look at it. They can tell if you took it outside. Say if you're in St. Louis and you had the arch behind it, you're in New York, you have Statue of Liberty behind it. You know, I'm sure some tons of other cities have things like that that are well known locally. Google will say they'll know where it was taken. You know, sometimes they'll look at the all at the alt text. That's that's good to have because you you want to have that for other reasons. But Google's using AI in a lot of ways that you would not expect. But Photos is a really cool one because there's so much that they can tell in photos right now.
Amy Toman 9:00
Everything from what type clothing you're wearing, if you're with an animal, what kind of animal, if you're with a dog, cat, or whatever, they can tell what breed it is. They can tell if you are outdoors, indoors, what you are physically doing at the top. Very, very cool things that you wouldn't expect. So Google's really making good use of AI to monitor listings and to gather information that they then use to to promote your business to know about the business so that they can correctly promote
Collin 9:33
it. I know even whenever I'm searching for businesses or searching for myself, okay, because I we do that. We want to check see how we're doing. The kind of keywords that I use, the search terms will dictate the kind of photos and the reviews that are displayed to me in the Google listing section, and that's very recent because that didn't really used to happen or at least be as prominent. But now you can actually see how your business display it actually. It's actually deciding how to display your business to people depending on the terms that they're searching. And if we like, like you're saying, Amy, like if I don't ever have a picture of a person with a cat, what are the implications of me being displayed for people who are looking for that kind of service?
Amy Toman 10:18
But but see, that's that's the cool part. Is that yes, they are looking for that, but that's not the only thing that they look for. So if your website has, well, this is a cool thing with your Google listing. If you are specifically gear your business towards cats, you should have that in your business name. If you don't have it in your LLC, have it, get a DBA, and use it there. Then show it on your website and show it. You know all these places. But if cats are only part of your business, right? If you if you do pet sitting, but you do dogs, cats, kind of birds, whatever, then on your website homepage, this should be mentioned. It should be mentioned in your services page. It should be mentioned probably in your service area page, or to have a link to it. And it should be mentioned on your contact us page. It should also be shown in your social media, and it can be mentioned. It should be mentioned in your reviews. Google. This is a new thing that that I don't know if people are aware of. But every time you make a change to your Google listing these days, Google used to just accept it, and that was the end of that. They don't do that anymore. They go out, and I mean, this is everything from your business name to your address if it shows, phone number, all of that. They go out and verify it first, and how do they verify it? They start with your website, then they go to your socials, and I think specifically because it's one of the first place that come shows up is Facebook, and then LinkedIn. So, if say if you go in and you want to make a change to your phone number, I tell people, and I've said this for for you know at least three years, first make the change elsewhere, and let it sit for at least a few days, if not a week, you change it on your website in all the places, right? In the in the header, in the footer, on the contact us page, you change it on your website first. You change it in your socials where where you can, because I know like some of them are a little restrictive, and then you change it on your LinkedIn, and if you have better business bureau at places, but then after a few days, you change it on the Google listing because this is a new thing for Google. It may have something to do with AI. I'm not sure, but right now, this is their big thing: is to make sure that all the information is 100% consistent, and if it is, then they will approve the update. But again, saying okay, saying like going back to the the cats. If you provide service, and I've I've said this because it really applies to cat pet sitters. If you provide a service for which there is no primary category, because there is, I I I have tried. I will continue to try to get one for pets for cat cat sitters, cat care, something like that.
Collin 13:24
Yeah. If
Amy Toman 13:24
you don't have that, you, as I said, you want to you want to add it elsewhere, add it to the socials and the website, all this. But also, you can go in and you can add it in services because on the Google listing, and you know, and then put in you know two or three sentences about it, because Google gathers information from so many different places right now. The more information that you have out there about a certain topic, the more likely you are to show up for it, even if there's no primary category for it, right? There's dog walker, there's pet sitter, you know, there's there's kennels, there's places like this, but there's not some for like pet bridal attendant.
Collin 14:13
Yeah,
Amy Toman 14:14
not a category. And when I bring it up, once they stop laughing, I explain to them what it is, and that I understand that there's you know it's not everywhere. It's probably probably what North America and Australia maybe. Yeah. Um, but what I explain is and and what I say and it really and this is to Google people. I say, but it really helps that we now have services because then you can go in and you can still get the visibility for that.
Collin 14:42
Yeah.
Amy Toman 14:43
This all goes back, and I know I'm babbling on, but this is something I talked about a few years ago. Something that kind of this all kind of pulls into is called a strategy that was big for a bit, which is still there, but if. Gets really neatly into AI strategy these days, and it's called EEAT: experience, expertise, authority, and trust. Basically, the more that's out there with your name on it and your expertise, the more likely you are to show up both in searches and in AI. It shocks me because in the past, I want to say three or four weeks, I've had at least three or four people say that they contacted me for Google-related issues because AI mentioned me, and then, but I, I will say that I attribute that to not only my, my poor sad website that really needs to be updated, and and I have a good friend who's going to help me too, who are going to help me do that. But I think it's that, but it's also, you know, I, I've done things, I've spoken on podcasts like yours always comes up on the first page. Thank you, but also you know so many other places, and I do things on LinkedIn. I add things on this that now. I'm not saying that those opportunities are available to everybody, but if you are active on socials, if you occasionally put your name out there somewhere, and like say if there's a subreddit for your city or town, go in there under your real name or your business name and comment all of these things. Google because Google uses all of it. If you think like you know you're like a word cloud, remember those from a few years ago? It's the same thing. Think of all of that relate. What is that? Oh, what is that? Anyway, it's on my wall in the back. But all of those things work together because the more Google knows about you, the more likely they are to recommend you or your business. That includes a few things. That includes both your business name, your expertise, services you provide, and the area in which you provide them. Well, I will take a breath now.
Collin 17:08
Have you heard of Time to Pet? Dan from NYC Pooch has this to say:
Speaker 1 17:14
Time to Bet has been a total game changer for us. It's helped us streamline many aspects of our operation, from scheduling and communication to billing and customer management. We actually tested other pet sitting softwares in the past, but these other solutions were clunky and riddled with problems. Everything in Time to Pet has been so well thought out. It's intuitive, feature-rich, and it's always improving.
Collin 17:34
If you're looking for new pet sitting software, give Time to Pet a try. Listeners of our show will save 50% off your first three months by visiting timetbet.com/confessional. Well, Amy, there are that was the is a big concern that a lot of businesses have is the hey, I was so focused on SEO and and how I show up and how I rank at number one, and now I have to be concerned about showing up in AI and being recommended in AI, and what do I do with that? And I think what you just said should alleviate a lot of people, or at least give them those goals of okay, the EEAT. If you want to, because Google's looking for that authority and that trust and that like, who are you, and are do you do what you say you do, because that's they want to give good recommendations. At the end of the day, Google's job is to give the best recommendation or a series of recommendations to people for their intent. They're trying to gage that. And if I have, if I'm blank, if I there's nothing about me anywhere, I'm never going to show up. And you know, right?
Amy Toman 18:40
No, it's it's it's really true, and I mean it kind of it kind of links into what I was saying a moment ago about how if you're going to change something on your Google listing, do it well elsewhere first. It's the same thing. If you're starting out your business, or if you are making a substantial change, maybe you bought another business, maybe you're changing your business name. Always do it other places first, right? Make the Google listing the last thing you do. But talk about it. Talk about it on the website. Talk about it on your socials. Mention it on LinkedIn. So you say, okay, you know what? I I go on LinkedIn once a year. Go on more because it does come up in search results, and I mean one of the things to do is go in, put in your go in incognito, put in your business name, see what comes up. If those pages are not the ones that you want to come up, you got to think about what you can do to get something else to come up that you're looking for. But it's it's you know I've my opinions on these have changed so much over the years when seeing things because everything changes you know everything changes and the the the big things I'm seeing right now are weather. Sites are good, but a lot of people miss the mark. Okay, on on SEO, I saw I saw one last week that I just I woman absolutely lovely. It was a dog trainer, absolutely lovely, but the problem was that basically her her traffic tanked, and she didn't know why. And I went in and I kind of went through this whole thing, and I I explained why, and it was just really really hard to say. I've seen these for years, and I don't know what people are you know making these same same problems, yeah. And it's it's just it's hard because now I look at websites so differently than I did earlier. But as you say, it's almost more important to put yourself out there in a bunch of different places because the more you do that, the more likely those LLMs are going to find you, whether it's Claude, whether it's Gemini, whether it's you know anywhere.
Collin 21:05
Well, because again, they're pulling from this like corpus of data and knowledge, and if they're at their core, they are just trying to fill in the next word in that sentence, and the more right, and so I, it's now like okay, this goal of when it's it's best dog walker near me. I need them to assume that it's my business because of what they find about me out there. And so, I mean, are there? You've mentioned LinkedIn, Facebook on your website. Are there other places that are you aware of that have more or less weight? Like, are they looking at how how much are they pulling from Yelp or Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce like those kind of places? Do I also need to be
Amy Toman 21:47
Better Business Bureau? Not only do they do they look at, but in some situations when you if you are trying to trying to do something with Google and your listing has gotten screwed up and you're trying to fix it, they require Google requires a Better Business Bureau listing, a live listing, and they want the link to it. So that's something to remember. LinkedIn. If anybody tells me that they cannot have a LinkedIn page because for their business because they're only one person, I will send you to mine, which I think I got the same year I started my business, which is 2017. You can have them for for one page. The other things, honestly, I would do is go into one of the LLMs in incognito. Do not be logged in, and see what comes up. Now, what I've been told and what I've seen is, and you want to have real fun, go into Duck Duck goes because they're like completely someplace someplace totally else because theirs you know it is theirs doesn't track yeah so and when some something says it doesn't track that also means it's not it's not customized so a friend of mine the esteemed Ben Fisher who's very very good at this and he's been doing it longer than I have. He pointed out that if you go into something like ChatGPT or one of the others, and you Google say your business name or best whatever, you do it 10 times, you will get 10 different responses.
Collin 23:18
Yeah.
Amy Toman 23:19
So don't necessarily assume that the one that you're the first one that you get is like the great one. I mean, when people have been telling me they've been, oh well, you know, we contacted you because we saw you in here. I'm like, okay, that's cool. I'm very excited, but I'm not going to go in necessarily try it because it may not come up for me because they're so customized. So, but but I would say honestly I would say LinkedIn, Better Business Bureau, and then yeah Yelp, I would I would definitely put Yelp reviews behind Google. I definitely would do that. But yeah, but they're definitely good. If you are in other industries, there are other places like I think for for people do like home services, House is sometimes good. I'm not sure if Angie's comes up, but there are a few that are industry specific that help.
Collin 24:10
Well, it's that repeatability that can be can become concerning, I guess, or frustrating as a business owner. Of hey, with when it was just the SEO, I was pretty. I was consistent. I was number two. I was number two. I was number two. I was number two. And now it feels like roll the dice and see what comes up. Roll, you know, roll it again. And I think that's part of just understanding. Yeah, that's that's where we are right now. That may change in the future as things become more solidified. And so very
Amy Toman 24:38
much
Collin 24:38
right. Like I'm sure you've seen so much change just within the past year of these things and how they function.
Amy Toman 24:44
100% and and you know it gets really frustrating. Like we, I used to be able to help on the Google Business Profile help form. I used to be able to say to somebody, "Hey, can you give me this information? This information that was cool. Then Google kind of changed their whole process. So now we're. To kind of different paths with that, and a lot of things are like that where you're so happy you've got this down, you know where you're going, and then they change it, and it's really really annoying because, like I said, you know you've you've built something up, you may have even purchased things, and then it changes, and so you just you just I mean like with everything you just have to be aware and you just have to listen like you know like listen a podcast like yours maybe find find a marketing podcast a digital marketing podcast that you can tolerate that you can maybe while you're walking or something or driving that you can listen to because it's hard. Google changes things, and it's not always in your face. There's not long ago there was I had a problem with this is not pet sitting, but this illustrates what I was talking about with a real estate person. And the real estate person, what we got back eventually is why they couldn't get their Google listing reinstated, was because they were associated with this one company, and it seemed like no matter what, we could never get a straight answer. So for I would say, maybe six months or more, anybody who was associated with that one agency, was not permitted to have whether they had their name on it or not. They were not permitted to have like their their listing. If a listing went down, oh well, Google wasn't doing anything about. So thanks to I'd like to say me, but it's it's probably more another product expert named Chris Andrews, Chris Andrews, Chris. Anyway, he he was really pushing Google about it. I was pushing from a different angle, and between the two of those, they got fixed. But but but my point my point is, why why did that happen? I I don't know. And you know what? Before it happened, you never would have known, and now it's dealt with, and you wouldn't have known that even happened. A few years ago, there was this thing called the Kansas Bug, where a lot. Do you remember this? I do. A lot of pet sitters out of nowhere were all of a sudden, when they didn't show their address, they were relocated to the center of their countries. I dealt with this in Canada, the U.S. I want to say Ireland, and definitely Australia. And they were put in, especially in the well, not really in the U.S. but in Australia and Canada. They were put into some godforsaken places. Let me tell you, because they were like, you look at these countries. There's definite areas. Like with Australia, people are around the edge, around the sides. Canada, they're along mostly along the border. So if you have people moving, like all the people are down here, but your pin markers are up here, it's not going to help. So, but that's that was a thing. It was on for a few months. Most people got it fixed, and we moved on. But I think that's a big thing these days: is you've got to find what a person or or a place that you find to be reasonable that you can check in with every now and then to keep to keep up to date on these things. Well, one
Collin 28:21
thing that I I think has become increasingly more common from Google is to actually be calling businesses using their AI agents. What should we do to be prepared for this, and what are they actually looking for when they're calling?
Amy Toman 28:39
This has been brought up in in I will say circles. I won't say where, but you kind of will know. But it's been brought up, and the problem is that a lot of small business owners get a lot of calls anyway. So if you don't recognize a number or if it doesn't seem local, you don't answer it. That really needs to leave. You have to start answering calls. I, when I get calls sometimes from Google, they're not about this. They're about other things, and so I've saved the numbers. So I say, okay, if it's in this is this zip, sorry, this zip code, this one, another one, area codes. I I pick it up, but it's it's going to be really really difficult to know, and it's it's frustrating. What we keep asking them, product experts keep saying, is look, there should be some way for business owners to be able to look at that incoming call and say, you know, this is Google calling. I mean, I had something weird the it was like two, three weeks ago, and I should have posted about it on somewhere. I was looking for something, and I wanted to have it like near me. You know, a product I could pick up was a cleaning product. It's actually a hair product, but also a cleaning product. Anyway, and Google offered to find it, and I'm like. Okay, I'm thinking. Okay, well, you know what? There's a there's a Target, there's a grocery store, whatever, and they they ended up calling three. They said they called three places, and they said it was available at Walmart for this price. This Walmart at this price, and I'm like, I felt like going, did you really call those places and ask? And they did. and I was like, but I I wish I could tell you there's there's like a magic way of knowing that it's Google calling, but but there isn't unfortunately. But if you get that AI voice, I think it's I would be more inclined to answer it than not. The things to remember are that if Google calls, first of all, they don't call about your listing usually unless you have called them. Like so, if somebody says, "Hey, I'm calling about you know from Google support, and your listing is not verified, and for this low rate, I can help you become verified. No, they don't charge you for anything. Google does not at this time, and you also don't want to give them any any information. Like, don't give them your login. Don't tell them which emails you use. Things like that, because that's a sign, obviously, that somebody is trying to trying to screw around with you. The other thing I've noticed, and can I bring up about the 24/7 calls?
Collin 31:24
Yeah, I think because this is a big thing of of we we we tend to just make our Google Business listing right, and and then we set it to we're always open. Well, because I want to be found all the place, or maybe we don't even think about that, and we just go with whatever the default is, and we move on with our lives. But this is actually having an impact or potentially having an impact on businesses.
Amy Toman 31:43
Yeah, it was found out. It was kind of discovered. Kind of, it's it's one of those things where we all kind of knew it, but somebody actually just came out and said, put it into words and said, hey, if people and I had actually said this to business owners several years ago because I remember somebody calling me and saying, you were so right, I got a call 10 o'clock at night, and but what people have found is that your if your business is open, the open hours at the time somebody is searching to try to find your type of business, you will be more likely to show up. It doesn't really matter what type of business it is, although that may be refined now, because this was this was discovered about two or three years ago. What's interesting now with Google, with all its you know fact finding and all this and looking everywhere, one of the things that was asked on the forum, which is which is place where people ask questions and you know you help them out. Somebody said, "What you know? Can I have an AI agent answering my phone?
Collin 32:51
Yeah,
Amy Toman 32:51
which I think is a really really good good question. And they actually got back to me, and I published this on LinkedIn when I don't know a year ago or something, or maybe six months, but what Google said in response was, you can have so you can have an agent answering the phone, an agent or maybe an answering service or something, but they said, but it and it you need to basically be able to get back to people within a reasonable time, within like I'm guessing like an hour, you know, half hour to an hour. They were their example was calling a business at 3 a.m. Now, if you get back to them by 4 a.m. all cool. If you don't get back to them until 6 a.m. not cool. Google's very-I-I do not know how they figure this out. It would actually scare me a little, but I would-I would think they're also keeping an eye on your reviews. And if somebody says, you know, I called them at X time and they did not respond, Google's gonna-you're going to be on their list to see if this is a thing. Maybe they'll make one of those phone calls. Who knows? But you're allowed to have you're allowed to have AI agents. You're allowed to have answering services. But the big thing is, if a message comes in, you need to respond to it within a reasonable amount of time. Not doing so may result in Google changing that on you. And yes, I have seen that happen. If you have a storefront, which people people don't think about this, when you change your hours, remember how I said they they go out and they check everything these days. One of the things they check is what is everyone else around you doing, and if they, if you want to close, say you're closing at five, but everyone else doesn't close till eight, then the possibility you won't be closing till eight because Google may not accept that. They look at traffic patterns. And there's a whole article about this a couple years ago. They have traffic, like literally, they have you know Waze and Google Maps people, and they will know if that if that area has a lot of traffic at night, and they will also look at the other businesses. They also look at signs in the window. If you have a sign in the window that has your hours, and that sign does not say that you are open till eight, and your website doesn't say that you're open till eight, and you're online this and you're online that. Your update might not get accepted. You have to remember that it's like this holistic thing right now. They look at everywhere to confirm the information that you put in there.
Collin 35:43
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Amy Toman 37:49
You know, that's a really good question. I I don't I I don't know. Um, I don't know. I think it's going to. I think it's going to depend on you know that's that I I really don't have an answer for that because on the one hand I think at some point Google may edit it out you know take out all those prompts but I there's so many things in terms of reviews there's so many things that Google looks at they look at the time of day it was left. It was the. It looked at the day it was left. It looked at the account that left it. It looks at the account on which it was left. They look at were a whole bunch of reviews left within a reasonable short period of time. If so, where else was the business mentioned. So, did the did the business promise something in return,
Collin 38:48
like a Facebook contest kind of thing, where they'll say, "Hey, exactly,
Amy Toman 38:51
which you're not allowed to do. Or on the kind of on the other side of that, did someone have a mean spirited social media mention of this business, and did that lead to incoming, you know, bad reviews or good reviews? Who knows? There's a place down in in New Jersey right now that got a ton of bad reviews for something they they did, or it was perceived they did, I don't know. I wasn't there, but but I saw Google took most of those down. I mean, fast. I mean, this thing happened probably I don't know four or five days ago, and most of the reviews, which were there, were a good amount. There were 2030, of them, and they're all gone now. And something people should realize that I don't think people do. When Google takes down a review, it's not gone. They didn't delete it. It's just hidden. They just-it's like a little checkbox, and they just because sometimes if your reviews get taken down, and you go back and you say, "Hey, you know, this is this is a legit review." They'll bring it back, and how could they do that if they deleted
Collin 40:04
it? Yeah, yeah. What do you need to have to prove that a review was legitimate? Can I just say, please bring it back, or what do they need from me?
Amy Toman 40:13
I wish that's like the age-old such it is question. Interview has been around for what since 92, so prior to 92, but it's it's interesting because it like I said, there's two articles that came out recently that talk about different reasons why reviews would be taken down, and and they give you that. I'm going to tell you the authors. One is Miriam Ellis, in case anyone wants to look this up, the other one is by Claudia Tomina T O M I N A, and they they give you insights, kind of kind of into this whole topic. But to prove a review, it's easier to prove a review is fake than it is to prove that one is legit. The problem is that Google does not have verified accounts. You don't have to have a verified account to leave a review.
Collin 41:11
Yeah,
Amy Toman 41:11
you know you have to have a Google account, but you don't have to have it. It just it doesn't have to be verified. And the problem is, you know, I don't have. I don't have. I don't think I have Amy Toman at Gmail. I have a variation of that, but I don't have Amy Tolman. My primary one doesn't even have my name on it by design. And but the point, the reason I'm going to bring this up is if one of the reasons that you believe that a review is fake is because you do not recognize the business name. If that's your primary reason for saying it's fake, it's not going to come down because Google doesn't have those. Like I said, you could have you know Amy Toman 624-720-4824 11. It could be the same person, but it could all they could all be different people.
Speaker 2 42:05
Yeah, I
Amy Toman 42:06
mean, I have a friend who has like Tinker Bell in her business name or her email name. I have ones that are just random, you know. I have one that's something on the porch. I can't remember what was flying something on the porch. They approved it. It's fine, you know. But my my point is, like I said, it's easier to prove one is fake than one is legit. I was told today by somebody who knows that you can submit things like invoices or like client lists. I've not had any. I have not had luck with that. I will say that when I did have somebody who was who said, and I was so amazed by how well they did this, they came to me and said these reviews are fake because the person worked for us and it was one his hands and the other is his wife, and I said, I said okay, and I went through the whole thing of like, look, if the only thing that you're saying about these is that, based on the name, that that's who this was, that's not going to work. And she's like, oh no. She says their names currently have their LinkedIn currently show that that he worked there. Their Facebook pages show that they were married or married, and that and that he worked there. He he hasn't changed it yet. And our social media shows him on at our locations at at events. Guess what? They took the reviews down. Surprise!
Collin 43:41
Surprise! They could prove it.
Amy Toman 43:44
But that's that's the big thing is when you have an issue, and you think, okay, I got a fake review. If you can't say if the only thing you're going to say is that I don't know their business name, don't even bother going to Google. What you want to look for and what you want to try to prove is you go to Google's content guidelines for Google Business Profiles, and you look in there, and they have all the reasons why they would take reviews down. And you need to be able to prove one of those because Google just doesn't randomly take stuff down. I know one of the people who's in charge of like the management of these. They they have their rules. You stick to the rules, you're great. But if you think about it from Google's side, which I don't think a lot of people do, the rules that they put out there they are applied globally. The rules that we have, the content guidelines that we abide by in New Jersey and Missouri and Kansas and Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island and Ireland and. You know, Britain-they are all the same rules. So when these guys are making changes, there's a lot of places they have to think if it applies to. Give you an example. I said to the guy I saw recently. I was at a Google gathering, and I saw the people for Waze, and I said, "Oh, I have something interesting that you should be aware of. And they said, "What? And I said, "In New Jersey, they're not called. You know those those things that you drive around like this.
Collin 45:32
Yeah, circular. Some may say. Yes,
Amy Toman 45:35
yes. In other places and on ways, they are called roundabouts.
Collin 45:42
Okay.
Amy Toman 45:44
They are in Massachusetts. They're called rotaries, and where I am in New Jersey, they're called circles. Yes, we are simpletons, but they call them circles, and there are a lot of them. So what did I do? I said, "Are you aware that in New Jersey they're not called roundabouts? They're called circles. And I said, but I am sure I can't imagine that you can regionalize that. The guy next to me goes, Yeah, yeah, I can. I was like, that's so cool. But again, the whole point is people will at Google when they make a new rule or they make a process. A lot of it is how how do we apply this worldwide? You know, and that's why some rules you guys may say anybody may say that doesn't make sense. It does when you put it into kind of the broader context of it.
Collin 46:40
Well, that makes it so that we have to just sometimes accept that I might not fully understand why, but it just is what it is, and I have to go along. It's not
Amy Toman 46:50
always right. It's not always right, but you know, people say to me, "Well, of course, it's a fake review. Can't you see that? I'm like, "Yes, but if you what you have to do is you have to think like a lawyer,
Collin 47:01
yeah,
Amy Toman 47:02
and say, "I have to present proof, and if I don't present legit proof, they're not going to believe me.
Collin 47:11
As I mentioned, the business owners using AI in their business, am I demoted, punished in any way if I have a lot of AI generated content on my Google Business listing or on my website. Of if I have Google, you know, AI generated photos. Like you, you just said, "Hey, have more photos of you with cats or you walking dogs. And I go, "Oh man, I don't have any. Can I go generate 15 photos of me, quote unquote, walking a dog and throw that out there and have Google accept that?
Amy Toman 47:42
Oh, I mean they'll they'll accept it, but I think I think they're not going to put it this way. They're not, from my experience, they don't just take them down if, ah, if because they're AI, and mind you, a lot of AI now has a watermark, and I don't know if you know this. It's all synth ID.
Collin 48:02
Sure.
Amy Toman 48:03
So you can put it into say like Gemini or or one of the other LLMs, and they will tell you that it has it was created in an LLM because it has the synth ID watermark. But anyway, I don't think they take that down. But I think they look at it in the broader context of this person is holding an iguana. Their website does not mention anything about that. Their services don't mention that. Nothing about what they do. So I'm not going to recommend them for that.
Collin 48:31
Sure.
Amy Toman 48:32
Now, if they are, if you're, if you posted 15 AI-generated images of you or somebody walking dogs, they would like I said, if you're a dog walker, that it would help. But what's really cool is I think Google is would be more inclined to appreciate that if, say, the person walking the dog in the photo is also mentioned on your website as a staff member. You know what I mean. mean. So it's kind of like ways to ways to kind of very, you know, kind for them to kind of be sure that you are who you say you are as you represent yourselves.
Collin 49:16
Getting back to that, they're looking to find people that are trustworthy, right? That have that expertise, that have that authority, and and it we, I think we get caught up a lot and may sometimes overcomplicate these things enough of think well, Google's obviously not going to like X Y Z, and it's going well, they may, they may not, but like you said, what's the broader context here? What's the what's the overarching theme of what I'm trying to get and how things are put together?
Amy Toman 49:41
Yeah, no, that's that's it. That's it, 100% I mean, you need to sit there and say, okay, what am I? What do I think? What's the thing that's going to help me the most? And generally, it's I am a blank in blank. That second one would be the location. So you said. I am a dog walker in Belmar, New Jersey. Okay, so what you present, if that is how what you want to be known as, that is what you need to present out there. You need to say if I if you are going to represent yourself as a dog walker, you have to put that out onto the internet. Okay, so that starts with the website, but it could also be if you're doing blogs. You know, don't don't don't stray too far from that. You know, if you're saying you're in Belmar, well, that's cool. And but if you start publishing more about other towns. Well, at some point they're kind of kind of go. Well, wait, no. So you you really you just want to be consistent. You want to choose that. Like okay, give you an idea. Title, business name. People don't ask me. People should ask me because this is the way the best thing you could do for a business name, okay? And again, this is to comply with Google. Someday somebody's going to write this tome about how business, business management, business administration has changed in the age of Google and you know browsers and all this. The best way thing that you could do to name your business, it would be the who, the what, and the where. That's the person I work with now. Who, the who, the what, and the where. Something unique. Service name, location. Okay, so it could be Collins. You know iguana feeding of I don't know Newfoundland. Too broad. Got to get something closer. But my point is, Google loves that because it tells them unique. It tells them what you do and where you do it. So a lot of people will just have they will just have you know Deb's dog walkers and Deb's pet sitters, but if you add in that extra little bit, it it helps you in terms of being found. But the issue is, and I tell this to people all the time, and I don't know if people remember it. You don't ever want to do something like that. You don't want to add things to your Google listing like your your business name, your address. You don't want to change those unless you have a you have added it elsewhere first online. But the big thing is, don't ever change your business name until you have paperwork to back it up. Like remember how I said like of you know location, I'm sure a lot of people listening will go. Oh, that's a great idea! I'm going to do that. No, what you want to do first is you want to think how if I always try to think towards suspension, how am I going to prove that that's how I get a support that that's my business name, and so in the U.S. it's pretty much the same in Canada as well. But in the U.S. you have usually have an LLC. Some places you can just have a DBA, but usually an LLC. And then if you want to change that name, you get a DBA, also known as an alter alternate name or assumed name, trade name. I used to have a list of like six of them, but you get that first. Then you go change everything online. Then you go and change a Google listing. But I just just and so like when when people hear me saying things, please don't do anything yet. Don't do anything until you make sure that you have paperwork to back it up. I am always, always, always thinking towards suspension. You know what does a business owner need to have to be able to support the business if they ever get suspended by Google?
Collin 53:55
Yeah, you're really yucking on my impulsive yum over here, where I really want to go. But I think it's it's so good to just remember, like, if I really want this that that mindset, like you said, think like a lawyer. What do I have to prove? Where's my evidence? Where are my documents? Where else? What do I point to? And not just it's because I want it, because that's not they're not that's not going to be accepted. And too often we think, but that's what I've deemed it. But who who who would you point to? And I think that that's just the mindset we should carry through all of this. Whether we are heavy invested into the AI or whether we're just worried about setting up our listing for the first time of what's the authority? What do I prove? Go point back to and have I proved who I am? What do I do? And where do I do it? I love that. Like just keeping it that simple throughout everything that we do.
Amy Toman 54:44
It's it's really it's really a good thing. P.S. Don't don't touch your Google listing based on anything an LLM says. I will tell you that. Don't do it. I cannot tell you how many times people have come to that that ask questions. Either sent me questions or, you know, post it on the Google forum. Well, I asked, and it said to do this, and now I'm suspended. It's like, well, there used to be a thing, and you know, I'm sure a lot of your listeners. Well, I don't know a lot of your listeners would know my age, but I like to think I'm. I look younger than I actually am, but maybe not. But there is there was an old term at the dawn of the internet that G I G O garbage in, garbage out. If you put something in that is not accurate or not complete, then you're going to get something out that's not accurate and complete. A lot of times, I found people ask questions about their Google listing, but if you don't know the problem fully, you're not going to ask the right question, so the answer is not going to come out. So you got to be really, really careful about working on Google listings with the help of an LLM, they just they don't know enough of the nuances about them. So just be careful,
Collin 56:08
Amy. I really appreciate you coming on the show today and sharing with us and encouraging us to investigate this, to get connected with good resources to help us make these decisions, and also the cautions as always to go slow and make sure we understand what we're working with. This is an ever-changing topic, and there's always something new around the corner. So, for people who want to follow along with you and what you're writing about, and maybe pick your brain or ask questions, how best can they do that?
Amy Toman 56:34
That's a really good question. Right now, my brain has been has been elsewhere, unfortunately, as people will have probably mentioned that I haven't been on Facebook as much. Most, most likely, I'm on LinkedIn of all places a lot. LinkedIn, send me a message anywhere on there. It's Amy A M Y. It's Toman T O M A N. And keep an eye out that I look fairly like this. I think I have sunglasses on because there is another Amy Toman. Even though I have Amy toman.com, I will say that she can't have it. But you look look me up under SEO. I'm on there. People can also text me if they're interested at 7328. Was it 8200103. That's on my website. Just text me, which also needs to be updated. But that's another issue in itself. But if people really want to contact me, LinkedIn right now is the best place. And I'm, I specifically love to help with reinstate Google listing reinstatements, troubleshooting, and but reinstatements is the one I spend the most time on right now. And just whatever you do, if you get if you get your listing suspended, don't immediately appeal, because a lot of people do that and they're like, I don't know what happened. I'm like, okay, well, Google's making it easier, but when they make it easier, they also-it's a little bit tougher in some ways. So anyway,
Collin 58:06
okay. Well, yet another thing where I need to rein in my impulsivity. So thank you for that reminder, as always, Amy.
Amy Toman 58:12
100% dude. 100%
Collin 58:14
Oh, this has been yet. I've just loved our time together. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Amy.
Amy Toman 58:20
Thank you.
Collin 58:21
With all of the recent changes in AI and SEO, it was a wonderful reminder from Amy that the more Google knows about you, the more likely they are to recommend you or your business. Being found online is becoming more and more than just stuffing the right keywords into a website. Google is looking across your website, Google Business Profiles, social media reviews, photos, services, directories, and so many other news sources to understand exactly who you are, what you do, and where you do it. And for businesses like ours, that means consistency matters. If you want to be known for dog walking, cat sitting, or another specific service, make sure that your online presence actually demonstrates that expertise instead of simply mentioning it once and hoping it landed. The goal isn't to trick Google; it's to give Google enough consistent evidence to confidently understand and recommend your business, and don't forget that this episode is eligible for one CEU. So click the link in the show notes to take the quiz and get the certificate. We want to thank our sponsors today, Time to Pet and Critter, for making this show possible, and we really want to thank you so much for listening. We hope you have a wonderful rest of your week, and we'll be back again soon.
