Google Places for Business Breakdown

Google Places for Business This document is intended for you to better familiarize yourself with the major changes happening with Google’s local services. Google Places for Business is the new dashboard that manages all of a company’s Google products across the web. To login to your dashboard, go to https://www.google.com/local/business/. The following are components of Places for Business:

¾ Listing: Your basic information (name, address, phone number, etc.) that you see in search results and in the map

¾ Reviews: A new online review monitoring tool that keeps you up to date with both Google and third party reviews

¾ AdWords Express: Create Google search ads with ease, and get them in front of the local audience you choose

¾ Google+ Page: Google Places and Google Plus have joined forces and created one local Google+ page

¾ Offers: Similar to LivingSocial and Groupon, create an offer and display it on your Google+ page or in Google Maps

¾ Also see the ideal situation for creating/claiming an account, and also the unique situation for medical clients.

Listing Here you enter your basic information including name, address, phone number, URL, category, hours, photos and description. Google uses this information to display your business in local search results, Google maps, and on your Google Plus page. Once you verify your listing by phone or mail, your listing will be verified.

You can see the information used in the search results and in the local information panel that appears after rolling over a local result.

Listing information is used in Google maps.

Listing information is used in the company’s Google+ page (will go into more detail below).

Reviews A customer can find a business’s Google reviews directly in the local results, directly in the Maps results, or on the business’s Google+ page. Google recently released a review monitoring tool so that a business owner can learn what customers are saying about his/her business on Google and across the web, in one place. Previously tools like this would cost at least $30 per location, but now it’s built into the Places for Business dashboard. The tool includes a Review Inbox and Review Analytics.

Review Inbox

Google picks up reviews from almost every major review site excluding Yelp.

Review Analytics

Discover where the majority of your reviews are coming from, and which sites you need to focus on.

Review rating is not as important as number of reviews for ranking, however a high number of stars helps a business visually stand out.

Let your customers know that you care by replying to their reviews (both negative and positive reviews).

AdWords Express AdWords Express was specifically designed for local small businesses and smaller budget advertisers. The tool consists of choosing your local audience, creating your ad and setting your budget. However if the ad spend is greater than several hundred dollars a month, the regular AdWords tool might be a better choice.

Google+ Page When using the new dashboard, your new Google+ page combines your local and social info into one master profile page. When selecting “Google+ page,” you are brought to a Google+ page that includes the local information that you provided in the “Listing” section.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Google has reportedly been creating a G+ page from your listing without your authorization. This means that a business is forced to optimize its G+ profile with photos and constant posts so that customers do not land on a blank page.

For a business not interested in constantly maintaining a G+ page, please see Mike Blumenthal’s article Google+ Pages for Local: An SMB Survival Guide.

New Local Google+ Page Walkthrough

Notice that all local results show a company’s set of Google reviews, but a business upgraded to the new dashboard with the Google+ extension will also get a link to its Google+ page.

The About tab has all of the information that one would previously find on a Google Places page: company location information, Google review statistics, where to find more reviews from around the web, and if you scroll down you will find all of the company’s Google reviews. The Posts, Photos and Videos tabs are basically the same as they’ve always been on G+.

The new Google+ header: the profile picture is a circle, so make sure to upload a square shaped photo (do not use a logo!). The cover photo is a 16:9 ratio. The first checkmark means “Verified local business,” only business that have verified their Listing by phone or mail. The second checkmark means “Linked website,” and means that Google can associate your G+ page with your website (a strong sign of authorship).

Offers A company can create an offer on Google, which is similar to a Groupon or LivingSocial offer (Buy 1 get 1 free, 25% off all purchases, etc.). Your offer will be promoted on your Google+ page for free, as well as on Google Offers and Wallet apps. For an additional monthly cost, you can also promote your offer on Google Maps and on target Offers emails.

Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft is promoting its Google Offer on Google Maps.

Ideal Claiming Situation Claiming a Google Places for Business listing can be tricky if not done correctly, especially now that Google is in the process of revamping all local listings. Below are suggestions to make the claiming process easy for both the Local team and the client:

¾ Most ideal situation– Google listing that has never been claimed. Unclaimed listings automatically get the new dashboard. We would create a Google account using a company representative’s domain specific email address (ex: xxx@domain.com). We would then claim the business listing using this account.

¾ If listing has already been claimed, but by a non-domain specific email address (xxx@gmail.com), then we would need to transfer ownership to a new account using a domain email.

¾ Many of the listings that have previously been claimed are still stuck in the old dashboard and unfortunately do not have the real time updates that the new dashboards have. Google’s plan is to eventually update all dashboards, but it is happening slowly. Please be patient, as something that could be updated in a few minutes in the new dashboard might take a few weeks in the old dashboard. Only Google has the power over which listings get updated and which will have to wait.

Medical Clients In the recent update, Google has decided that not only will a medical office receive a Google Places for Business listing, but so will each doctor within that office. This means that medical clients will require more work to properly show up in local results.

Here are 4 out of 18 results that appear when searching for (512) 454-5171 in Google Maps. The top listing is the actual Capital Medical Clinic, and the rest are all lisings for doctors at Capital Medical. Each doctor receives his/her own listing in Places for Business, which means his/her own reviews and Google+ page.

Each doctor listing must have unique content on it so that it stands out from the doctor office’s listing and the listings for the other doctors. This is why medical clients take more time and effort to properly rank in local. However this also gives the opportunity of multiple listings (the office listing + all the doctors’ listings) to show up in the local results.

Not sure which dashboard you currently have? Check out Mike Blumenthal’s Guide to Google Local Listing Page Identification.