What Is A Google+ Local Page?
Google’s Forum Manager Vanessagene has offered the following explanation:
A local Google+ page is just a new look to the Google Places listing. It has all the social features available to Google+ users; Hangouts, sharing to circles, video uploads, etc.
You can read more about this here!
So, What Really Changed?
• Google+ Local pages will be seen in Google search, Maps, and mobile. – Great news!
• Google+ Local now intergrates “Social”, allowing businesses to use all the same social features found in their Google+ Profile. Much like Facebook, this includes posts, videos, photos and the ability to find and filter businesses based on reviews and recommendations from family and friends in your circles.
• Google five star rating system became Zagat 30Gpoint reviews. (Although there are rumors that this will be reverted back to the 5-star system, which makes sense to me. In my view, the Zagat system is not suitable for all types of business, service industries for one. Really, how do you review “ambiance” for an internet marketing services provider like myself? I am here to help your market your business online, not to show you a good time.
• Reviews are now going to be added through Google+ users account. Reviewers need to be logged into Google+ to leave a review. Meaning, the ability to post anonymous reviews has been removed, which in my mind is a good thing. The review will be public and attributed to their Google+ name. If you ask me, clever move on Google’s part to get more users under their fold. So far, we have not had problems adding any reviews via the new Google+ Profiles. Note: Old reviews are being brought over to the new Google+ Local Pages, so no worries.
• There is a new “Local” tab in Google+, giving the user convenient access to search for other local businesses.
In short: Google+ Local is the new name for Google Places and has been enhanced with Social
What Stayed The Same?
• The algorithm is still the same. After doing a compare and contrast on many of our client's listings, the results we’ve come up with show that the algorithm that is used to determine ranking is still THE SAME.
• The interface is still the same. To update your new Google+ Local Pages you will still create, claim, delete, and edit your listing using the old Google Places dashboard. Google has confirmed that for the time being, it will remain the same.
• Rankings stayed the same. There has been a lot of rumouring that many listings lost their rankings in the process of the conversion. Our analysis has proven this to be not true.
What is important to know is this: To rank your listing on the first page of Google correct optimization is required. The more competition your business faces, the more optimizations is required. Do not ignore these well documented stats:
A business listing that appears in spot one garners 41% of clicks to their website or Google+Local Page
The number two spot gets 12% of clicks to their website or Google+Local Page
The number three spot gets 8.5% of clicks to their website or Google+Local Page.
The rest goes to all the other listings.
A top ranking in Google, Bing and Yahoo can make a huge difference to your business. So, why would you not want your listing to rank as high as possible? If we can assist you in anyway to improve your current ranking, or help get listed in the major search engines and directories, please give us a shout. You can reach us at (707) 853-0702 or send an email to brickert@resultsmarketing.biz.
We look forward to hear from you and work with you.
Birgit Rickert
www.resultsmarketing.biz
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