Mecca Bingo: Google listings for every club

The brief

Mecca Bingo, part of The Rank Group, runs bingo clubs in towns and cities across the UK. Each club needed its own Google listing (then called Google My Business), set up correctly, verified and grouped under one account the brand controlled. Rank contracted us to set up, verify and optimise all of them.

The work

We created and claimed a listing for every club, verified each one with Google and organised them under a single business account. Then we optimised them one by one: each location got its own address, phone number, opening hours, categories and photos, rather than one set of details copied across the estate, and we managed the account through the rollout.

We also shot 360° virtual tours for some Mecca clubs and published them to Google Maps. For Rank’s casino brand we went further, with tours of every Grosvenor Casino.

What we found when it came back to us

When Rank’s digital team asked for access again in late 2016, 56 listings had changes from Google waiting for approval. Google edits listings itself, using suggestions from the public and data from around the web, and those changes can go live without anyone checking them. There was also a duplicate listing and a queue of reviews without replies.

In early 2017 Rank brought day-to-day management in-house, and we arranged the handover of the account’s login and security settings to its SEO team, so the business held its own listings.

What it taught us

A multi-site brand’s listings don’t stay right on their own. Every location needs someone checking Google’s edits, answering reviews and updating hours for holidays and refurbishments. That’s the job our Google Business Profile management service does, and why we always set clients up as the owner of their own profiles. Our guide to Business Profile management covers what that involves.