Summary
Brickwork offers an optional syndication feature allowing you to use the information in your Brickwork site to syndicate the store information, photos, and hours of operation to a Google My Business listing. Use this capability to improve your search engine optimization and make it easy for your customers to find the right information in Google.
Why do I need syndication?
External links from Google and other sites to your Brickwork Store Pages play a large role in improving your search results (SEO) and optimizing the placement of your listings both in Google and elsewhere.
Connect Your Google My Business (GMB) Account
To use the Google My Business Syndication feature with Brickwork, you must first contact your Brickwork Customer Success Manager or support@brickworksoftware.com to enable this feature. Once enabled, use the Integrations page under the admin menu's “⚙ ” icon in the top right to connect your Brickwork site to your GMB account.
If you don't already have a GMB account, sign up for an account here to begin adding and verifying your listings.
When you authenticate your GMB account against your Brickwork site, Brickwork will begin syndicating this information.
How do I get started?
First, make sure your store pages have the correct information in your Brickwork site. A correct listing has an address that resolves correctly in a map service and contains the right store name, open hours, and phone number.
Finding the Google My Business Integrations Link
As a Brickwork Corporate Admin user, navigate to "Integrations" from your Settings menu.
Associating your Google Account to Brickwork
Click "Associate Google Account" on this page to trigger the authentication against Google. Use the name and password associated with your GMB account.
When you complete this step you will see your account name listed under the Account Name area. If you manage more than one company in Google My Business, ensure the correct account is selected and then click Update Company.
Linking your Brickwork Stores to your Google My Business Listings
Once the Account Name is associated with the correct GMB account, you will need to Link Stores with Google My Business.
Clicking Auto-Link All Stores on the Integrations page will work for most locations if the number field for your store name corresponds to the storeCode field in your Google My Business listing.
If your stores are listed below this button after completing the synchronization you will need to either:
- Correct your store_number in Brickwork to match the storeCode you are using in Google My Business (or make the corresponding changes in GMB to match your Brickwork store_number); OR
- Create a new Google My Business location for each store you would like to syndicate. Use the Create GMB Location button to take this action.
Note: Brickwork will begin syndicating your information once you associate your GMB account to an account with validated locations, so make sure you’re ready to do this before you associate your locations.
Note: When you add photos, they are only syndicated once per day.
Confirming that the information exists in Google My Business
After auto-linking or creating Google My Business locations, confirm that the information has updated in Google by visiting your Google My Business account.
Which fields in Brickwork are mapped to my Google My Business Listing?
Here are the Brickwork fields synchronized to the corresponding fields for that location in Google My Business.
| Brickwork Field | Google My Business Field |
|---|---|
| company_name | locationName |
| number | storeCode |
| phone_number | primaryPhone |
| address_1 | address.addressLines |
| address_2 | address.addressLines |
| address_3 | address.addressLines |
| neighborhood | address.subLocality |
| city | address.locality |
| state | address.administrativeArea |
| country_code | address.country |
| postal_code | address.postalCode |
| regular_hours | regularHours |
| special_hours | specialHours |
| published_at | openInfo |
| slug | websiteUrl |
| primary_image | photos.coverPhotoUrl |
| other_images | photos.additionalPhotoUrls |
| preferred_photo | photos.preferredPhoto |
For more details on the Google My Business API, please see here.
When do my changes get synchronized to Google?
We send a change in information to Google when you update the store in your Brickwork site. This might happen when you change a store name, add a photo, or change the available hours for your store.
Below is a list of fields that trigger syndication in GMB. It is organized by actions and results:
- Action in Brickwork Admin/API: A store is created.
Result: All corresponding GMB fields are updated. - Action in Brickwork Admin /API: A store is updated and one of the following fields is changed: ‘number’, ‘phone_number’, ‘address_1’, ‘address_2’, ‘address_3’, ‘neighborhood’, ‘city’, ‘state’,‘country_code’, ‘published_at’, ‘slug’
Result: Only the changed fields are updated in GMB for that Store. - Action in Brickwork Admin /API: A store regular hour or special hour record is created/updated.
Result: All hour data is updated in GMB for that Store. - Action in Brickwork Admin /API: A store hero image is created/updated
Result: All the store image data is updated in GMB.
*Edge Cases: When a field is changed in GMB, it will remain out of sync from Brickwork until that field is updated in Brickwork and syndication is triggered.
How do I correct errors I see on Google?
When you see a Google My Business link (or "card") on Google that you believe has incorrect information, there are several reasons why this might occur:
- Confirm that the store listed in Brickwork does not show up on the Integrations page listing stores to be linked with Google My Business.
- Confirm that the store number you provided to Brickwork is consistent with the location's store number field as it exists in Google My Business (you may run into this case if you have previous Google My Business listings and move your syndication to Brickwork using inconsistent data).
- Check in the Google My Business dashboard to confirm that there are no messages requiring action.
- Trigger a small change in your Brickwork store by changing the hours of operation for that store.
If none of these steps resolve your issue within a few hours, please contact your Brickwork Customer Success Manager or support@brickworksoftware.com.