Booking essentials
Reserve with Google: How to Get a Book Online Button on Google in Australia
By Bruno Melani, founder of Gaplessly · · 5 min read
The short answer
Reserve with Google puts a booking button on your Business Profile on Google, but only through a booking provider Google has accepted as a partner.
Any business can instead add its own booking link to the profile, free and with no approval, pointing at its online booking page.
What Reserve with Google is, and who can switch it on
Reserve with Google, sometimes shortened to Google Reserve, is how Google takes bookings from Search and Maps. Someone who finds your business on Google sees a button on your Business Profile and books without hunting for your website. Behind the button is a booking platform Google has integrated with. Google's help centre says the program is "only available in certain countries/regions for businesses that work with a supported scheduling provider."
That means you don't apply to Reserve with Google yourself. Your booking software applies, Google reviews it, and once it is accepted, its customers can switch the button on from their own profile.
Three ways to get a book online button on Google
- A booking link you add yourself. It's free and needs no partner or approval: you paste the address of your online booking page into your Business Profile, and customers tap it to book on that page.
- A Business Link, through a partner. Google's name for a deep link, supplied by an approved booking platform, that opens straight to your availability. Google requires a physical location it can match on Google Maps and a link to a page for your business specifically.
- Booking on Google itself, through a partner. The customer picks a time and books without leaving Google, and the booking lands in your provider's system. This is what most people mean by Reserve with Google.
How to turn on Reserve with Google
- Check that your booking software is a Reserve with Google provider in Australia. Google lists the providers available in each country on the Reserve with Google site, and your provider can confirm it.
- In your Business Profile, open Bookings, select Get started, choose your provider, then select Done.
- Wait for it to appear. Google says your booking providers "will show up on your Business Profile within a week."
- Ask about cost first. Google's help centre says that when a customer books through Google, "your provider might charge you."
Why your booking software can't just switch it on
Booking platforms join through Google's Actions Center, starting with an interest form that Google reviews. Its developer documentation says Google reserves "the right to include or exclude merchants as we see appropriate" and requires each business to have a physical location Google Maps can match. Whether the partner button is open to you comes down to which booking software you use; no setting in your own profile changes it.
How to add a booking link to your Business Profile
If your booking software is not a partner, or you would rather not depend on one, your Business Profile has a plain booking link field. On Google Search, open your profile, select Booking, then Add link. On Google Maps, select Edit profile, choose Booking, then Add link. Paste the address of your booking page and save.
Booking providers can also add links to your profile automatically. If more than one booking link shows, Google lets you choose which one is "Business preferred," and you can remove a provider's link from the same screen.
Both routes end in a booking. The difference is where the customer finishes it: on Google itself, or on your own booking page.
Reserve with Google or a booking link: which to use
- Your booking software is a partner in Australia: switch on Reserve with Google, and ask what it charges per booking before you do.
- It isn't, or you're not sure: add the booking link today. It costs nothing, and a partner button can still be added later.
- Either way, point the link at a page where people can pick a time straight away, not at your homepage. Every extra tap before the time picker is a chance to lose the booking.
Using a Gaplessly booking page as your Google booking link
Gaplessly is not a Reserve with Google partner, so it can't switch on Google's own booking button for you. Every Gaplessly business, salon or restaurant, gets a booking page that works as the booking link on its Business Profile. In Gaplessly, open Settings, then Integrations: the Add a Book Button on Google card has your link and the steps above.