Google Places

Brand consistency in the market place; that’s what you want for your business.  Let's be real, if people can't find your business, they will find your competitors.  Google Places, Yahoo Maps & Bing Maps do what the yellow pages have done for over a hundred years which is to help customers connect with you. The search engines realized a few years ago that small business advertising revenue will be the future of their revenue growth, not national or international companies.

Over the last three years, Google has been slowly changing the format and flow of its search engine results pages to give the end user (us) a better local user experience. If we apply that simple concept of a "better user experience" for the consumer to all of the recent changes to their pages and page rank algorithm, we can understand why Google had to shake things up a bit.

Part of providing the customer a "better user experience" involves creating a Google Places ranking algorithm as well.  Claiming your business listing and updating the information within the page is a critical factor to "showing up" or ranking on the first page consistently. So how do reviews factor into your Google Places listing? Are reviews really that important?

When you look at the Google Places map listings, have you noticed that businesses with a horrible reputation in your marketplace show up just as often as the businesses with great reputations? If you click on the reviews and read them, sometimes those reviews are not real flattering to the business. So why does Google rank those businesses with horrible reviews so high? To give the consumer the best user experience! The way Google sees it; they are doing the customer a huge favor by showing them which businesses to stay away from (better user experience).

If you have not updated your business lately, you won't show up.  Or, potential customers may get the wrong information about you and give up trying to find you.  Business today is not just about offering great products and/or services; it's about capitalizing on all of the information gateways available to you and your customers.  Making sure your brand is consistent and updated on Google maps is a must.  Can your business be found?

Need help getting your Google Places listing claimed/updated/created? Call us today @ (719) 205-3033 for a free consultation.