How Your Business Can Leverage On Google Places
Google, Grow your business, SEO tips, search engine optimization |
Google’s Local Business Center, a service launched under Google Maps which provided local business listings, has been further enhanced and relaunched as Google Places. This, as announced by the VP of Google Maps, Earth and Local John Hanke on the official Google blog, is aimed to seamlessly connect with Google Place Pages, another Maps component launched just last year that provides business owners their own landing pages that contained details about their establishments.
The resulting Google Places expands on both services with comprehensive information from across the Web about specific places and enables business owners to manage their presence on Google ala-Yelp. As such, details like reviews, real-time updates and existing special offers and discounts from business owners as well as photos supplement the listings to help people make well informed decisions.
Sure, this new roll out helps individuals find and discover places to go and shop; but how exactly will it help you as a business owner? Aside from the obvious benefits of having a Web presence with the accompanying useful information, Google has tweaked it further by adding a few more features.
Google Business Photos
To augment the specified information on every business-owned Google Places page, the search engine giant will also be doing photo shoots of the interiors of establishments, a free service dubbed as Google Business Photos. And to dispel potential privacy issues from arising, Google is running it as an opt-in addon with the interested businesses first prompting their participation and coordinating a photo shoot schedule with Google.
As of writing, Google Business Photos is only available in a few cities in the US, Australia and Japan and currently directed to types of businesses most regularly searched like restaurants, hotels and retail shops. Despite this limited initial availability, we expect this to eventually be available to other establishment types and more cities across the globe on a gradual roll out.
Service Areas to Target Clients
Businesses without a storefront or an office physical address whose nature of services are based on going mobile to serve their customers (like plumbers and computer technicians, etc) can specify which geographic areas they cater to. This will prove beneficial as you can focus on specifically targeted clients and develop your products and services around them. It can also help develop locale-specific marketing strategies you can inject into your overall campaign.
On-site Thumbs Up
As with Google search, Google Places ranks the most searched and sought after establishments and businesses, bestowing upon them with the “Favorite Places on Google” mantle under the Google Favorite Places program. While this pretty much helps you stand out among other businesses within Google Places, Google will also send you window decals which you can display on your location’s storefront, to certify your establishment’s popularity on their listings.
This, of course, signifies that your clients have responded positively about your business and that you’ve developed a substantial following which gives other users hints at the quality of your wares or services. With the Google branding giving you a thumbs up, it will visually attract the common passerby, who have yet to hear about you from other people or have not been to Google Places.
Along with every decal is a customized bar code (called the QR code) which, when your potential clients scan with their cam-equipped mobile phones, would direct them to your Google Places page where they can check out what you have to offer.
Advertising Platform
For a relatively low price, you can advertise with the use of Tags, or yellow markings that indicate the nature of your business that point to your specific location in Google Maps. These reflect across other Maps services including Google Places as well as on Google search results pages. These tags are easily generated in your page’s dashboard and would allow you to target specific markets. It has a flat rate of $25 per month and is offered to establishments in Austin, Atlanta and Washington DC in addition to its previous roll out locations Houston and San Jose, Calif. In addition, Google has announced plans to include Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco to the mix though they have yet to specify a date.
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RSpears @ April 20, 2010
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