Google Place Pages updates, how to overcome them

Google Place Pages also Google Place listings underwent some major changes in the past couple of weeks, I already talked about these changes in one of my previous posts. What I didn’t tell you, was a way local internet marketers could salvage their clients’ businesses, so that changes made to Google Place pages doesn’t really affect them and their businesses. That’s what I have been doing for my clients since Google Place pages were “updated”. Basically what all local internet marketers need to do (including yours truly) is to make small changes to their clients’ website to avoid any loss in the number of customers.

Follow some Simple Steps to Restore Your Client’s Customers

Let’s first have a roundup of all things that have disappeared from your Google Place Pages:

• Your mentioned business timings
• Short owner description up to 200 characters
• Additional details

I know other things are missing too, such as third party reviews and citation sources, these are also very important. However, we first have to deal with the absence of the most basic information such as working hours and business descriptions, as no one would come near your client’s business if they don’t know what that they do exactly!

All you need to do is put the missing information from Google Place pages onto your client’s website.  As customers usually log onto the business’ website (even for the briefest) moment, before they switch their status from visitor to customer, hence these steps will work. So, here’s what local internet marketers should do for their clients:

Step# 1: Put your client’s business hours visibly on their homepage. This means put the timings in BOLD, HIGHLIGHTED or DIFFERENT COLORED FONT, so they really jump off from the page.

Step# 2: Incorporate your client’s short business description from their Google Place pages into the website in such a way that anyone who comes upon the page, knows instantly what your client does.

Step# 3: Paste all the additional details that your client had on their Google Place page onto their website. So that their customers still get to see those details. Although these steps might sound simple, however they have amazing potential. Test them out for your client to help them recover from the changes made to Google Place Listings.

-Mark. G

Tagged As: business owners, businesses, Google place listings, Google+, local internet marketers

Google+ Business Profiles VS Facebook Pages

Facebook and Google+, these are the only two words that one hears these days. Which one is better? Which will trump the other as far as business goes? Once thing is for sure the news of Google+ launching its business profiles is both bitter and sweet for small business owners. It’s bitter because let’s face it; building up a new profile from scratch does take time. And it’s sweet because the potential that Google’s Place pages have for small businesses is much more than anything that Facebook has to offer.

Since its development in 1998, Google has come up with various products that help with one’s individual and business needs, and even though these products seemed disconnected once, they are now all being aligned together.

The Edge That Google+ Has Over Facebook:

1. Google+ has Search on Its Side:

That’s the biggest edge in my opinion, Google+ has Google search. Google just recently disabled “Realtime search” which used to show Tweets and a limited number of Facebook updates, as its contract with Twitter expired on the fourth of July. Naturally, Google isn’t really giddy to renew the contract because it aims to integrate its own Google+ live feed into Google search.

2. Google Has Effective Tools For Productivity and Communication:

Google has launched its business productivity suites, in recent years these consist of word processing tools and calendars. Meanwhile Facebook is claiming to kill the concept of email, without realizing that thousands of people every day check their email as soon as they wake up. Counted amongst these people are the 200 million Gmail users. The bottom line is that Google is much more insightful than Facebook has ever shown itself to be.

3. Google has Google Check Out:

Google has launched its “Check Out” service; which in theory could be linked to Google+ for businesses, which will make it possible for businesses to link its payment services to the database of products within the Google family, instead of sending users/shoppers to PayPal. Currently, Facebook pages offers small businesses ecommerce through third party tools such as TabJuice which cost around $20 per month.

Google and Google+ are truly shadowing Facebook as far as business profiles go.

-Mark G

Tagged As: Ecommerce, Facebook, Gmail, Google Check Out, Google+, Local Marketing, social media marketing, Twitter

Google+ Business Pages, How Long Do We Have to Wait?

Google+, it has been a whole month since the new social network took the online world by storm, at present the network has around 20 million users who share over one billion items one day. Since its inception, a lot of talk has been going around about the arriving Google+ {Google Plus} business pages, the problem however is that they haven’t arrived yet and businesses big and small are slowly losing their patience.

One good thing that’s come of this long waiting period, however, is that we know that when Google+ business pages finally do start they are going to provide businesses with unimaginable potential to succeed. Google+ is so determined to only see business profiles on their site when they start them that they are currently deleting accounts of businesses that are set up as traditional users. The magic question is, what will these business profiles have in store for us?

Social networking profiles such as the ones available on Facebook have really been very successful for businesses. They help businesses maintain customer relationships, drive online traffic and enhance loyalty. This relatively long delay in starting up their business profiles makes us think that Google+ is really brewing a magical and impactful concoction for businesses.

Here’s What I Think Google+ Business Pages Will Have:

Obviously, the Google+ business pages will have traditional features of social media business pages such as application integration, linking ability, ecommerce abilities, photos and videos etc. I think Google+ business pages will have the best features of Facebook and Twitter pages along with some of Google’s own special ingredients.

The one thing that I’m sure of is that Google+ business profiles will have a great impact on search engine ratings. Also, it’s quite likely that Google+ social content will make a greater effect on SEO than Facebook and Twitter’s content. Other features of Google+ will also make it grab the edge over Facebook, let’s take “hangout” as an example; this feature is perfect for small business owners to set up webinars, conferencing and meetings.

I for one can’t wait for the start of Google+ business pages.

-Mark. G

Tagged As: business pages, businesses, Facebook, Google+, internet marketing consulting, local business marketing, Offline Consulting, search engine rankings, Twitter