The Google My Business Categories + Schema.org Dropdowns for the Win

If you work in SEO and particularly in Local SEO there are times when you need to track the primary business category for a client during the onboarding process. Sounds like it would be a piece of cake until you remember that there are currently almost thousands of different categories to choose from. The only logical way to build a dropdown incorporates autocomplete so that the user can type along and the tool will suggest the category from our predefined list of business categories.

The Google My Business Categories Dropdown Example

Schema.org organization types

Another use case would be for generating JSON-LD for a local business or other organization where you need to use the organization type.

Here's a working example for that as well. You'll find the code to build this for yourself below.

The Schema.org Organizations Dropdown Example

This list focuses on businesses and non-governmental types of organizations that local SEOs would be building JSON-LD for.

Check out the full list of schema from https://schema.org.

Steal My Code

Here are the implementation instructions:

Google My Business Example

  1. Grab the code from the textarea below.
  2. Paste this block of html with a javascript tag and css stylesheet link onto your page where you want the dropdown to go. Important: Make Sure to have jQuery installed higher on the page.
  3. Reload Page, and Boat drinks all around! You've now got a working autocomplete Powered dropdown with all Google My Business Categories in it.

Schema.org Organization dropdown Example

  1. Grab the code from the text area below.
  2. Paste this onto your page where you want the dropdown to go. Important: Make Sure to have jQuery installed higher on the page.
  3. Reload Page, and Boat drinks all around! You've now got a working autocomplete Powered dropdown with all Google My Business Categories in it.

Credits + Resources

Thanks go out to Awesomplete.js who makes this easy to use jQuery autocomplete plugin that is hosted on GitHub. If you want to customize the look and feel of the text input, have at it!

Documentation for awesomeplete is located here.

The list of Google My Business categories came from Solid Strategemson March 11, 2019.

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