Google Places Update

At our recent Google Places workshops we emphasised how much (and how rapidly) Google likes to change things in local search, including Places, but that it was still important to include as much information about your business as possible. This helps Google to verify the legitimacy of your business and its location as well as its postition in the marketplace.

Well, they've changed things again since then, and a lot of the data you enter in your Places listing is not currently being displayed. However, it DOES still matter, as Google themselves confirmed this week:

"The following info you provide may not appear on your Place page, but it’s all still used to help us understand more about your business:


• Email address
• Menu
• Reservations
• Optional attributes / Additional details
• Service area toggle “Show service area”


So just because we’re not showing it, doesn’t mean it’s not helpful for us to have — it helps our system ensure that your organic listing appears and ranks appropriately on Google and Google Maps when potential customers perform searches related to your service."

So there you have it, from Google themselves: they still use all this data, even if they don't always display it. Keep adding data, videos, images and more to your Google Places page to keep your business in the forefront of your local market. 

And if you need any more help with any aspect of local business marketing you know who to ask.


Roy

PS. Incidentally, Google say that the absence of business descriptions that you might have noticed on some Places pages is a bug that they're working on fixing, not part of their planned changes for Places pages.

Get up to Date with Google's Changes

We will be running an 'emergency workshop' on the fall-out from the changes Google made to local search in November which are still causing confusion and dismay to local businesses around the world.

By allowing ourselves a couple of months for the dust to settle we have been able to get a firm grip on the implications and the next steps that all local businesses need to make if they are going to profit from the increasing use of local search by customers and clients.

Roughly 80 percent of all searches for local services and products begin online. That means you NEED to be the company your potential customers see when they start that search. We'll show you how.

The workshop - the first of a series we'll be staging in conjuction with the Bury St Edmunds Chamber of Commerce - is this coming Friday at 9.am, at the Active Business Centre (St Andrews Castle), St Andrews Street South, Bury St Edmunds.

Full details and how to book are at http://googlechanges.eventbrite.com/ and the full list of courses is at http://marketingworkshops.eventbrite.com/.

Book now and get ahead of your local competitors!

Roy

Google Places - Another Alarming Anomaly?

Google is still sorting out local search - or at least some local businesses should hope they are.

Here's what happened when I tested Google's idea of 'local' today - bearing in mind that I'm in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Google clearly thinks that local for me (and for local plumbers) includes most of Southeast England:



None of the businesses listed near the top of the page are actually local, despite the fact I've entered my location (on the left) as Bury St Edmunds.

What's more, the map on the right does appear to show one plumber actually in Bury St Edmunds, but it's the one ranked lowest (on the first page) of the Places results (H).

This means that businesses with a more 'effective' Places listing are actually less visible than one with a worse Places page.

Click on that 'H' listing and you do get a 'proper' Bury map with the other local plumbers ranked correctly, but anyone just looking at Google's first page as I did could be forgiven for thinking that there is only one plumber in the town.

Incidentally, you will also see different results if you use the location in the 'search string' - by entering 'plumber bury st edmunds' in this example.

Google's local search updates have had a lot of publicity, not least from ourselves, but they clearly have some way to go before they're a genuinely reliable source of information for UK searchers.

Roy

PS. You can get more help with local search via our Cinnamon Edge website.

Google's Googly

Google threw everyone a googly last week when they changed the way local search results are displayed. It's fair to say that most people were wrong-footed!

From now on, it seems, local results will be a mixture of Google Places and organic listings, with no clear answer as to which will get priority, although a picture is emerging.

Google's changes have probably made hundreds of 'How-To' info products obsolete overnight, but fortunately our big products - all part of a joint venture that's been over a year in the making - hadn't gone to press yet.

So we've been able to include the very latest advice on how to optimise both Places and your main website (and other web 'properties') in the first new product before it launches.

That's along with all the hundreds of other pages of information, actionable tips and advice and straightforward strategies to grow your business.

In some ways it's a real nuisance for us. But it's pure gain for the people who will get their hands on the very latest on local search almost at the moment it emerges from Google.

Watch this space for the live links to the new product!

Roy