Google has recently announced that their Local Business Center has been renamed as “Google Places”, as part of a rebranding process for their maps-based data, and to mark the inclusion of some new features. Every company should be listing their business details on this part of Google’s service, particularly if they target a localised area, and the updated Places service will provide new ways to market to customers through search.

Google launched their Place Pages feature last September to provide users with more detailed information through the Google Maps service for more than 50 million places around the world, with locational information such as restaurants and hotels to dry cleaners and bike shops, as well as non-business places like museums, schools and parks. The renamed Google Places now coordinates business listings with this branded service and allows businesses to verify and supplement their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings and more.

The new features being made available within the Google Places service include:

• Service areas - if a business has to travel to serve customers, then they can now show which geographic areas are served. And if a business doesn’t have a storefront or office location (such as a home-based business), they can make their address private but still display a listing.
• New advertising options - for $25 per month, businesses in some cities can make their listings stand out on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags - yellow markers that allow companies to promote important aspects of their businesses, such as coupons, photos, or other select features.
• Business photo shoots - in addition to uploading their own photos, businesses in select cities can now request a free photo shoot of the interior of their business which will be used to supplement existing photos of businesses on Place Pages.
• Customized QR codes: businesses in the US can download a QR code that’s unique to their business, directly from their dashboard page. QR codes can be placed on business cards or other marketing materials, and customers can scan them with certain smartphones to be taken directly to the mobile version of the Place Page for that business.

These features are initially being made available to companies in the USA, and in some cases limited to selected cities, but are expected to be rolled out to other countries in the future. Google is also providing more detailed analysis within Google Places that includes data about how many times people have found a business on Google, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people traveled from to visit the business.

If you’d like to know more about how Google Places could improve your business visibility on local searches, please contact us now.

Google has made a number of notable changes to their search results in the past month. The first development has increased the frequency of local business listings being displayed within the first page of the search results, which has a significant benefit for local advertisers. The second enhancement concerns the inclusion of additional ’sitelinks’ below selected search listings, which offers the searcher more opportunities to enter the listed website at different points.

The recent change that Google has made to the use of the Local Business Listings means that the small map and accompanying business listings for up to 10 companies are now appearing across more search results, rather than ones that specifically include a location within the search phrase. Google is trying to recognise typical search phrases that would have a local search intent (such as ‘plumbers’ or ‘accommodation’), even if the searcher has not included a location term in their search. When this happens, Google will display the business listings below the top 3 ranking results and bases the map and location details on the recognised IP address of a searcher’s ISP (Internet Service Provider).

The intention is clearly to focus the results to meet a searcher’s intended need and although the method of targeting is by no means a perfect solution, this is an important enhancement that may improve clickthroughs for companies listed in the local business listings. Therefore it’s now more important than ever that companies who are targeting a local market ensure that their business is listed on this section of Google and is optimised as effectively as possible to increase the chances of being found.

The second recent change to Google’s rankings concerns the ’sitelinks’ displayed below selected websites in the ranking results. These have been visible for some time for large websites or when a specific business website is searched for, with the intention of giving searchers an idea of what the site includes and also more opportunities to click directly into a prominent section of the site. Previously these were displayed as a short list below the main ranking result and for the first search result only. Google has now introduced an expansion of these sitelinks into a single row of links, which will be displayed even for results that aren’t in the first position. This will help to show searchers some relevant sub-pages within more sites and potential increase the opportunities for people will clickthrough into the ranked website.

Google says that, just like the previous sitelinks, the new one-line sitelinks are generated algorithmically and the decisions on when to show them and which links to display are entirely based on the expected benefit to users. Therefore site owners can’t tell Google which links to include, but they can block some or all of these links if there is any reason they may not want to show them. This can be done through a Google Webmasters account, but removing these links is not recommended in most cases because the inclusion of these additional links will probably increase the visibility of, and traffic to, a website, whilst also improving the experience of users.

To find out more about increasing the marketing opportunities for your website on Google’s search results, please contact us now for more information.

Google’s Local Business Listings are now regularly shown within the main search results if a user searches for a local business, alongside a small map. In addition, viewing results on Google Maps provides more information and additional advertising options through Google AdWords, all of which should be used by a localised business to target their potential customer base. Google is now adding new features to this service to help advertisers gain more local business.

We first covered the value of Google’s local business listings and their increasing prominence in Google’s ‘universal search results’ back in our June 2007 newsletter. The local business listings service has developed further since then and remains an important area for companies who are targeting a localised market to gain a prominent listing. Achieving a high ranking in the 10 businesses listed in Google’s main results can be difficult, particularly in a competitive market, but if searchers click through to the more detailed business listings, or search directly within Google Maps, there are additional ways to achieve visibility and to attract searchers to your website.

One of the main ways to achieve good visibility is through the use of a local business advert, which is created as part of a Google AdWords campaign. This allows advertisers to create a specific advert to appear on Google Maps searches, with a small icon, address and contact details. In addition, Google has now announced some additional new features for these adverts to help companies attract prospective customers faster and to gauge how well their adverts are performing.

The first addition is that Google’s local business ads will now feature new interactive links within the panel that is displayed for the business. These panels are designed to provide more information for users and to connect them to the business quicker with a link to their website. Now users will be able to see more information from this panel and to take additional actions, such as a “Get Directions” option, a link to “Street View”, and “Save to My Maps” which allows users to personalise their search results.

In addition, Google AdWords will also be adding a new interaction report for local business ads in the near future. This report will help advertisers to assess the activity through the local business ads and their return on investment, with such information as how many users opened the info window and clicked on each of the new interactive links. Google says that Maps users are often looking for different information than Search users so that these new interactive links and the reports should help customers connect with a business faster as well as help the advertiser understand how to better target Maps users versus Search users.

If your business could be benefitting more from a Local Business Listing on Google, contact us now for more information on this feature and we’ll be pleased to help. We can create optimised listings and Local Business Adverts to help raise your profile and improve your visibility to your target market.

This time last year we made 5 predictions for 2007 and so here’s a quick summary of our list and what actually happened (you can read the originals in more detail in our January 2007 Newsletter):

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As Google Maps becomes more sophisticated and increases its visibility through Google’s new ‘universal search’ results and mobile search, there is an increasing importance for many businesses to obtain a listing on this service.

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