Google My Business Attributes (2024 Guide & Examples)
Google My Business attributes allow business owners to highlight features including specific services, amenities, and other qualities about their business. Once you’ve added business attributes to your Google Business Profile, they are eligible to show in Google Search, which can help improve your visibility.
Business attributes vary by niche, and are often crowd-sourced by users who have reviewed the business and other online sources (such as local news publications). In many cases, business attributes also overlap with Google My Business categories. Use this guide and list of Google My Business attributes to give your business a competitive edge in local search results.
Types of Google My Business attributes:
- Accessibility attributes
- Crowd attributes
- Planning attributes
- Dining options
- Highlights
- Amenity attributes
- Activity attributes
- Service options
- Language attributes
- Payment options
- How to add business attributes
- How users can add business attributes
- Action items & takeaways
Pro Tip: Completely describing your business is essential for optimizing your Google My Business listing. This includes adding Google My Business attributes, and completing many other fields and uploads within the management dashboard.
Accessibility attributes
The accessibility Google My Business attribute is available to most business with a physical location.
Accessibility attributes:
- Assistive hearing loop
- Beach wheelchairs
- Mobility scooter rental
- Passenger loading area
- Wheelchair-accessible elevator
- Wheelchair-accessible entrance
- Wheelchair-accessible parking
- Wheelchair-accessible restroom
- Wheelchair-accessible seating
✔️ How to add: Accessibility attributes can be added within the Google Business Profile Manager once you’ve logged into the account that manages your listing (see how to add attributes section).
🌐 Where they appear: Accessibility attributes may have appeared in search results in the past. However, Google no longer seems to feature Accessibility options on business profiles. Instead, Google likely uses this attribute to match searchers to relevant business. For example, performing a search for the keyword, wheelchair accessible restaurants {location}
will produce a result similar to the one found below.
The above result shows Google producing results that are relevant to the “Wheelchair accessible entrance” attribute, which is likely based on whether the business has added the attribute AND/OR users have mentioned wheelchair accessibility
within a Google review.
Crowd attributes
The crowd attribute options are available to most local business with a physical location, and vary depending on your business category.
Crowd attributes:
- Adults only
- Family-friendly
- Kid-friendly
- LGBTQ+ friendly
- Transgender safespace
✔️ How to add: Crowd attributes can be added can be added within the Google Business Profile Manager (see how to add attributes section).
🌐 Where they appear: The crowd attribute appears in Google Search, Local Finder, and may appear in other results across the web.
Planning attributes
Google My Business planning attributes allow customers to easily access information that’s highly relevant to planning their trip or visit.
Planning attributes:
- Accepting new patients
- Accepts reservations
- Appointment required
- Membership required
- Online events calendar
- Reservations recommended
- Reservations required
✔️ How to add: Planning attributes can be added by business owners and managers within the Google Business Profile Manager dashboard (see how to add business attributes).
🌐 Where they appear: These attributes appear within the Details section on profiles within Google search on mobile devices (see below), on desktop within Local Knowledge Panels, and may appear in Local 3-Pack results depending on the attribute and query.
Dining options
Dining option attributes are eligible for restaurants and for businesses in the travel & tourism industry. This makes it possible for users to determine whether a restaurant offers takeout, or whether a hotel might offer a breakfast buffet.
✔️ How to add: Dining attributes can be added within the Google Business Profile Manager (see how to add attributes section). Additionally, users are able to add information about their experience upon leaving a review. For example, users who start the process for leaving a Google review will also be presented with the option to give feedback about dining-related attributes (see below).
🌐 Where they appear: The dining attribute appears in Google Search, Local Finder, and may appear in other results across the web.
For restaurants, these dining options will appear as Service options in Google Search.
Additionally, these appear in Local 3-Pack as “attribute bubbles” and as a local justification below the business address for mobile searches (see below).
Hotels will have dining options featured as amenities (see below).
Highlights
Google My Business also has what’s referred to as hidden attributes. These are business attributes based on user feedback. This information can be found within the “What your business is known for” section within the Insights tab of the Google Business Profile Manager dashboard.
Hidden business attributes are considered to be valuable because they are used to describe the experience of customers (similar to Google reviews). Unless proven false, we Google will not alter or remove this information.
✔️ How to add: Hidden attributes can only be added by users, and may be sourced from information found throughout the web.
🌐 Where they appear: Hidden attributes can appear as Highlights in Google Search (see example below) and some being featured Local Finder.
Amenity attributes
Not all businesses are eligible to add amenities as an attribute. However, many businesses in the travel and tourism industry (such as hotels) will have this option available.
Amenity attributes
Amenity attributes
- Activities for kids
- Air conditioning
- Airport shuttle
- All-inclusive
- Babysitting
- Baggage storage
- Bar onsite
- Beach access
- Bicycle rack
- Booster seats for children
- Business center
- Cellular service
- Child care
- Concierge
- Convenience store
- Currency exchange
- Dogs allowed
- Elevator
- Fitness center
- Fitting room
- Front desk
- Full-service laundry
- Gender-neutral restroom
- Gift shop
- Gift wrapping
- Golf course
- High chairs
- Hot tub
- Housekeeping
- In-room massage
- In-room safe
- Ironing service
- Laundry service
- Live TV
- Massage services
- Mechanic
- Meeting rooms
- Newspaper delivery
- Parking (free / paid)
- Pet-friendly
- Photocopying
- Pool
- Public restroom
- Restaurant
- Restroom
- RV hookup
- Solarium onsite
- Spa
- Steam bath
- Stroller rental
- Swimming pool (indoor / outdoor)
- Tennis court (indoor / outdoor)
- Unisex restroom
- Vending machines
- Wake-up calls
- Wi-Fi
- Wi-Fi in public areas
✔️ How to add: Eligible businesses may add amenities associated with their business to be featured on their profile (see how to add attributes section).
🌐 Where they appear: Amenities can be viewed in Google Search within the About section and may be featured across other Google products.
Activity attributes
Activity attributes are commonly found on profiles in the travel & tourism industry (such as hotels), and describe additional activities and amenities that may be found on the property.
Activity attributes:
- Beach access
- Bicycles for rent
- Boats for rent
- Game room
- Horseback riding
- Jogging track
- Nightclub
- Scuba diving
- Snorkeling
- Tennis
- Water skiing
✔️ How to add: Eligible businesses may manually feature activities on their listing (see how to add attributes section).
🌐 Where they appear: Activity attributes can be viewed in Google Search within the About section and may be featured across other Google products.
Service options
Service-based businesses will have the option to specify whether they offer online appointments and onsite services.
Language attributes
In a 2023 update, Google now allows business owners to add language assistance attributes (found under the service option attributes).
This includes 19 options for business owners who are able to assist and communicate with customers in other languages.
Payment options
Google My Business formerly featured payment options as attributes. However, these were removed in the United States. This is likely due to the majority of businesses accepting most modern forms of payment (debit, credit, and checks).
Additionally, there’s little evidence to support that local searches are performed to find businesses based on accepted forms of payment (which is probably why they were removed).
How to add business attributes
Follow these steps to add Google My Business attributes to your profile:
- Sign in to your Google Business Profile
- Choose the location you wish to manage (if multiple locations)
- Click the Edit profile option in Google Search
- Navigate to the More tab
- Add the attributes relevant to your business
Note: Depending on your primary business category (or niche), you will have different business attribute options. For example, a hotel will have different attribute options than a law firm or restaurant.
How users can add business attributes
Users can influence which attributes display on your profile through the following methods:
- Google reviews
- 3rd party reviews
- References on the web (such as articles and publications from other websites)
In this example, this restaurant has several highlighted business attributes including Great dessert (see below).
Searching through the profile’s Google reviews, they have an overall positive customer sentiment for reviews that mention dessert
within the content of the review. Overall, they have 13 reviews that mention dessert
with a star rating of 4.38 if calculated.
This is likely why the listing shows the Great dessert attribute. Google likely also references data across the web to highlight attributes. For example, the restaurant also has the “On critic’s lists” attribute highlighted on their profile (see above).
Using some Google Search operators, we can quickly see that this restaurant is referenced on several “Best Restaurants” publications in the area.
This includes the following websites:
tripadvisor.com
restaurantji.com
yelp.com
familydestinationsguide.com
opentable.com
neighborhoodnewsonline.net
unation.com
In addition to the sites listed above, the restaurant is also featured on several other notable websites (national and local), which is likely why Google has awarded it the On critic’s lists attribute.
Pro Tip: Local press releases can make a huge difference when it comes to Local SEO and visibility in local search. Similarly, this includes listing your business on local citations with complete and optimized information about the business.
Action Items & Takeaways
In some cases, you won’t be able to directly control every attribute, but it is possible to directly add certain business attributes by managing your profile within Google Search.
For any local business, adding business attributes can be a great way to make your listing stand out and differentiate your business from competition. This is especially true for restaurants and hotels.