Businesses with multiple locations have a big task in front of them when trying to manage their online presence. How can they connect their customers with the locations closest to them? How can they make data changes to a group of their locations all at once? The challenges of managing multiple businesses in the real world can sometimes carry over online.
We’ve heard plenty of feedback about how you want to manage your listings on Google, which is why we’re excited today to announce an upgraded bulk listing management tool for Google Places for business.
We’ve made many improvements and now enable the following actions:
Edit one or more of your listings’ data at once
Search through your listings, filtering by specific information or for listings with errors
Upload new listings using a data file or by adding them individually within the interface
Tell us how we can improve this new interface by clicking the “Give Feedback” link
Before you get started with the new bulk management tool, watch the video tutorial that’s relevant to you or visit our Help Center for more information:
Starting today, you’ll be routed to the new interface whenever you click to upload or edit a data file via the Places dashboard, or by visiting https://places.google.com/manage directly. You’ll still use the Places dashboard to see your listing analytics and to perform PIN verification on single locations. Remember that your updates will still take a few days to appear on Google Maps.
We hope the new tool makes managing your business on Google Places much easier. We look forward to hearing your feedback and seeing your listings up on Google Maps!
Posted by Derek Wetzel, Consumer Experience Specialist, Google Places
Editor’s note: Each week on the Google+ Your Business page, we’re putting you in touch with Googlers and users who can help you as a business owner get the most out of our products and features.
In our latest Help Desk Hangout On Air, we introduced you to Google Places for business, a tool to help you manage your local business information on Google. Joel Headley, one of our in-house Places gurus, showed us how to get started, shared some best practices and answered your questions. If you missed it, you’re in luck: You can watch the full hour-long Hangout on the Google Business YouTube channel:
Some of the questions we answered during the Hangout:
When a business simply relocates, what is the best way to set up the new address in Places?
You should report the listing with the old address as closed via the Report a problem link on the listing itself (under the “more” dropdown). Our team receives that report and puts a “This place is permanently closed” label on the listing, so that customers who know your business to be located at that old address will know not to go there. And then, create and verify a brand new listing for the business’s new location.
What are the gray labels on the map itself, and how do I get one for my business?
The little icons (fork and knife, etc.) on the map are called Place labels, and because those are generated algorithmically, there’s no way for you to manually add one for your business.
How do I get my Places listing to appear for certain keyword searches?
We don’t offer advice on how to do this, but here’s a great video about how we approach local search ranking.
What should I put in the description field of my page?
Think of the description as your elevator pitch. Keep it short and sweet, and valuable to customers looking to learn more about your business. Don’t stuff it with a bunch of keywords — it won’t help you and it definitely won’t help potential customers.
When are Google Places accounts going to be connected to Google+ pages?
A popular question! We’ve heard your feedback, and we’re continuing to evaluate how these tools might work together in the future.
I went through the owner verification process, but for some reason user-generated content still appears on my page. Why?
Think of a business listing as a search result, featuring information pulled together from sources around the web (third party data providers, end-users, and, of course, business owners). When you owner verify your listing, this just means you now have access to other features complementary to the listing — like analytics or offers — and editing abilities via the Places dashboard. We allow the most recently verified edit to display on a listing — whether it’s from a user via the “Report a problem” feature or a third-party provider — in an effort to maintain an accurate and up to date map.
What are “at a glance” terms, and why are they appearing on my owner-verified page? These descriptive terms are meant to give users a quick snapshot of what a particular business is known for. We generate these terms algorithmically, from various sources around the Web. There’s no way to add or edit these terms in your Places dashboard. See our article on reporting inappropriate terms.
I don’t have a storefront and serve customers at their location. Can I list my business on Google Maps?
Absolutely. These types of businesses are what we call service area businesses, and we have a whole Help guide on how to create a service area listing. Note that if you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must hide your address per the Google Places quality guidelines. In your Places dashboard, while editing a listing, look for the “Do not show my business address” checkbox under the section “Service Areas and Location Settings.”
I’m having an issue with my listing, how do I contact support?
We have a support team that works with users to correct bad listing data and verification issues. Visit the “Contact Us” section on the Help Center homepage and you’ll see two options: Listing issues and Verification issues. Click the link that applies, answer the questions, fill out the short form, and hit Submit. Give a member of the support team a few days to investigate your issue and get back to you via e-mail.
To learn more about how to get started with Google Places for business, visit our Help Center or check out the Google and Your Business forum. And join us for next week’s Hangout at 11 a.m. PDT Wednesday April 11, when we discuss how to get started blogging using on Blogger. We’ll be collecting your Blogger questions early next week on the Google+ Your Business page.
Posted by Vanessa Schneider, Google Places community manager
When we initially announced the Business Photos pilot program, we wanted to give business owners an easy way to get customers in the door online using interactive, high-quality, 360-degree images of places on Google Maps and on Google Search results. With thousands of businesses under our belt — from salons to gift shops — we’ve been hearing the same question again and again from both business owners and photographers alike: How can I participate?
Well, with the overwhelming success of the first pilot, we’ve decided to unveil a complementary initiative that will help us reach more interested business owners, more quickly: Trusted Photographers.
Click and drag to view the inside of Spice Market, New York City.
It’s simple. Visit our new website and search for a Google Trusted Photographer in your area. Either email or call a photographer in your area to schedule a time and agree on a price that you will pay the photographer for a photoshoot of your business. This self-serve model makes for easier scheduling and quicker turnaround, while also supporting the local photographers in your community. During the hour it should take for the shoot, you can collaborate with the photographer about how best to display and capture your business. When finished, the photographer will upload the images to Google, and shortly thereafter, you’ll see 360-degree panoramic views of your business on Google.com, Google Maps and on your Google Places listing.
See how Business Photos has helped Toy Joy of Austin, Texas.
Trusted Photographers are available in 14 U.S. cities, as well as in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France. Don’t see a photographer in your area? Let us know, as that will help us determine where more Trusted Photographers are needed.
Editorial note: Many of you have already verified your Place page via Google Places for business. We encourage you to continue maintaining the information in your Google Places account to help ensure that potential customers can find accurate information about your business on Google Maps and local search. You may also want to supplement your Google Places account with a Google+ Page for your business, which provides you with additional ways to engage and directly interact with customers using Google+. Currently, however, Google Places accounts and Google+ Pages must be managed separately.
Since the initial launch of Google+ just a few months ago, we’ve welcomed over 40 million people and introduced more than 100 new features. For all these people, one important part is still missing - your business.
We want to help you make the same kinds of lasting connections with your customers online the way you can in real life. That’s why we are introducing Google+ Your Business, a collection of tools and products to help you get closer to your customers. At the heart of this is Google+ Pages, your business’s identity on Google+.
Google+ Pages: Have real conversations with the right people
To get your business on Google+, you first need to create a Google+ Page. On your page, you can post updates and news about your business, engage in conversations with your customers, send tailored messages to specific groups of people, and see how many +1’s you have across the web. Here are a few features of Google+ Pages that we think will help you build relationships:
Google+ Pages are at the heart of Google+ for Business
Hangouts
Sometimes you might want to chat with your customers face-to-face. For example, if you run a bookstore, you may want to invite an author to talk about her latest novel, or if you market a cosmetics line, beauty specialists might want to hold how-to sessions for makeup tips. Hangouts make this easy, by letting you have high-quality video chats with nine customers, with a single click. You can use Hangouts to get product feedback, help solve problems or simply get to know people better, all in real time.
Hangouts let you meet your customers, face to face
Circles
Circles allow you to group followers of your Page into smaller audiences. You can then share specific messages with specific groups. For example, you could create a Circle containing people who are your most loyal customers and offer them a special discount.
+1 button and Google+ badge: Inspire current customers to recommend new ones
Google+ Pages also help you deliver your great content to users in a way that’s easy to share with their friends. We introduced the +1 button as a way for your customers to recommend your business across the web - on Google search, in your ads, on sites across the web and on mobile devices. Now, your customers can +1 your Page, recommending your actual brand -- not just an individual ad or a site -- directly to their friends.
To help your customers find your page and start sharing, we have two buttons you can add to your site by visiting our Google+ badge configuration tool:
The Google+ icon is a small icon that directly links to your Page.
In the coming days, we’re introducing the Google+ badge, which lets people add your page to their circles, without leaving your site, to start getting updates from your business via Google+.
Make your +1’s count, improving the performance of your ads
Coming soon, we will also make it possible to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns for your site, so that all your +1s -- from your Page, your website, ads and search results -- will get tallied together and appear as a single total.
Your +1’s will be shown with your brand wherever it appears, including search, ads, Google+ and your website
Consumers will be able to see all the recommendations your business has received, whether they are looking at an ad, a search result or your page, meaning your +1’s will reach not only the 40 million users of Google+, but all the people who come to Google every day. In the coming days. you'll be able to link your page to your AdWords campaigns by following the instructions in the AdWords Help Center.
Or, if you're using AdWords Express from your Google Places account, you can link your ads to your Google+ Page by simply selecting the option to direct viewers of your ad to your Google+ Page, and entering the Google+ Page URL in the appropriate field.
You can link your Google+ Page to your AdWords account with Social Extensions. Social Extensions are available in the ad extensions tab in your AdWords account.
Bringing Google+ to the rest of Google
Our ultimate vision for Google+ is to transform the overall Google experience-- weaving identity and sharing into all of our products. Beginning today, we’re rolling out a new experimental feature, Direct Connect -- an easy way for your customers to find your Google+ Page on Google search. For eligible pages, when someone searches for your business with the ‘+’ sign before it Direct Connect will send them directly to your page. For example, try searching for ‘+YouTube’ on Google. Users will also be prompted to automatically add Pages they find through Direct Connect to their circles. Direct Connect will not work for everyone.
Direct Connect suggestions start populating as you type on Google.com
Just the beginning
We wanted to help you get your business on Google+ as soon as possible, so we’re opening the field trial for Google+ Pages to everyone today. Creating a Google+ Page only takes a few minutes. To get started, you’ll need a personal Google+ profile. If you don’t have a Google account, it’s very quick and easy to join. And if you are looking for inspiration, check out some of the companies that are already starting to set up their Pages:
To learn more about how Google+ works for your business, check out the Google+ Your Business site. We’re just getting started and have many more features in the coming weeks and months. To keep up to date on the latest news and tips, add the Google+ Your Business page to your circles. If you have ideas on how we can improve Google+ for your business, we’d love to hear them.
Posted by Dennis Troper, Product Management Director, Google+ Pages
Our goal to create a digital representation of the real world doesn’t just mean a birds’ eye view through Google Earth, or a street-level view through Google Maps. It means providing a local view as well, and tools like Google Places help people across the globe learn about and connect with the places and businesses in their immediate areas.
We use a variety of authoritative sources to give users relevant local information about places that might interest them, including data from partners, users, and directly from business owners who verify their organic listings via Google Places for business. In addition, we always want to know about changes to a business that should be reflected on our local search products. That’s why we have the “Report a problem” tool on Google Maps, and also enable users to click on the "Edit this place” link at the top of the Place page to provide updates to a business listing.
And while some business owners may have previously verified their organic listing to ensure that their company information was correct at that particular moment in time, we recognize that amidst all the work that goes into running a successful enterprise, remembering to update their Google Places account may not always be top of mind. Oftentimes, a neighborhood local or a loyal customer is eager to help their favorite business update its online presence when it moves into a bigger space across the street, or extends its hours for the summer season.
That’s why today, we’re introducing a new process that helps streamline the way updates are made to potentially outdated or incorrect business listings. Previously, verified business listings would always reflect the information provided by its owner - even if we received data about an updated name, address, or hours of operation. But now, if a user provides new information about a business they know -- or if our system identifies information from another source on the web that may be more recent than the data the business owner provided via Google Places -- the organic listing will automatically be updated and the business owner will be sent an email notification about the change. Without requiring any effort on the part of the business owner, we’ll take measures to keep their listing up-to-date if our system determines that the edit is accurate. Of course, if the business owner disagrees or has even more recent information, they can always directly log in to their Google Places account and make further edits.
Online ads from business owners using our AdWords or AdWords Express programs will not be affected by these automatic updates. Ads will continue to display the business information the owner has provided in Google Places.
We hope these new features help users find the most accurate local information available, and make it even easier for business owners to manage their online presence. If you’re a business owner with additional questions about your specific listing, please consult the Google Places for business Help Center or visit our user support forum.
We want to make it easy for you to get found on Google. The best way to do that is to add your business information to Google Places for business to make sure all your information is up to date.
But sometimes, you need a little help along the way to ensure that you can be found on Google. And lately, we’ve been hearing from many of you that you’d like a little more of this kind of help. That’s why we’re excited to share a recent change to our Help Center.
Now when you visit the Help Center homepage, you’ll notice a new section called “Fix a problem.” Click the problem that applies to you. We’ll walk you through some questions to help you get to the bottom of the issue, giving you tips to help resolve any issues you experience. And sometimes, if you still need additional help, you can send us a note. Fill out the contact form, hit submit, and someone from our team will get back to you soon.
Here’s a video to help you get started, featuring Derek, a member of our Google Places team:
A little more than a year ago, we collected your questions and feedback on Google Places for business via a Google Moderator page. You sent us some great feedback, and we had a blast responding! Check out our video responses here on YouTube, covering things like features of a listing, Report a problem and ranking.
It's important to us to continue hearing your great feedback — and we suspect you've had a lot of questions and ideas throughout the past year — so let's fire up another Moderator page. Starting today and for the next two weeks, you can submit your questions and ideas, as well as vote up other submissions from users. We'll answer some of the more popular questions directly on the page and post a new video or two to the Google Places YouTube channel.
Start sharing your ideas right now, and stay tuned to us here on the Small Business Blog to see a roundup of responses.
Posted by Vanessa Schneider, Google Maps and Places community manager
Our team has loved becoming a part of your local communities, connecting with small businesses and bringing Places users together. In the spirit of continuing that mission, we’re excited to introduce our new community city pages. Now you can get up to date info about all things Google happening in Portland, Austin, San Diego and Madison.
On these sites, you'll be able to browse a list of some of the top businesses recommended by Portland locals by rating, by category ("Restaurant"), and by filter ("Family-Friendly"). Check back often as we'll be continuing to build out this list of places.
You'll find a page featuring the latest news about the Google Places community, as well as a list of upcoming Google events in that city:
And if you’re a business owner, we've got a special page just for you. Use it as your one-stop-shop to find out how to manage your presence on Google. Bonus: These pages have a fun set of video testimonials from small business owners using Places.
We’ve got big plans for these pages, so stay tuned in the coming months to see what’s new.
Whether it’s to find a great place for dinner or to grab a cup of coffee, I often look up places directly on Google Maps. Evaluating my options and making a choice just got even easier thanks to the list of associated terms that now appears directly in the local search results.
Starting today, Google Maps search results in the U.S. and Great Britain will include some of the phrases which are most frequently used to describe those places. These phrases come from sources all across the web, such as reviews, web pages and other online references, and they can help people quickly identify the characteristics that make a particular place unique. It’s like an opportunity to ask the business owner or its patrons “What’s good here?” or “What do most people get here?”
For example, if I’m looking for a place to relax and enjoy a great cup of coffee this weekend, I can see at a quick glance that Cafe Grumpy could be the perfect spot. Besides being known for their “latte” and “great coffee,” they have a “no laptop” policy — exactly what I was hoping for since I’d like to unplug and take a break from work this weekend.
Or if I’m planning to visit friends on the west coast and need to organize a night out, Rose & Crown could be an excellent choice given their “great beer selection” and “trivia night” games on site!
Whether you’re looking for local businesses in your neighborhood or in another city, these descriptive terms can help you find the places right for you. We hope you use these terms to discover new and interesting places on Google Maps, and watch for this feature to appear in Place search on Google.com and Google Maps for mobile soon!
Posted by Manjunath Srinivasaiah, Software Engineer
Earlier this week at the National Restaurant Association’s convention at McCormick Place in Chicago, the Google Places team met with hundreds of business owners to share with them all the benefits of Google Places. Our goal was simple: show business owners how Google Places can help them get found online and engage with their customers.
After setting up free Google Places accounts for many business owners, we demo-ed some of the many useful features they receive when they sign up for Places:
stand out with a business listing on Google.com and Google Maps when customers search for you
see what search terms people are using to find your Place page
upload photos and videos to your page, and encourage your customers to submit their own
reply publicly to customer reviews to show you’re listening
and lots more!
After claiming their business listings, business owners received our “Recommended on Google” window stickers. These interactive stickers have Near Field Communications (NFC) technology built right in, enabling people with cutting-edge phones like the Nexus S to simply touch their phones to the sticker to pull up that business’s Place page — containing relevant info about that location from across the web — on the map.
But perhaps the biggest hit at the conference? Our Google-colored bean bags! Many attendees stopped by just to take a load off in one of these comfy chairs:
A big thank you to the National Restaurant Association for having us, and to all the business owners we connected with at the convention. Keep in touch with us here on the blog, and on Twitter and Facebook.
Posted by Esther Brown and Margarita Vaisman, Google Places Community Team
When I’m looking for a restaurant in San Francisco, I always browse photos to see if the ambiance is right for the occasion. With our Business Photos pilot, we’ve been photographing businesses, with their permission, to highlight the qualities that make their locations stand out. In addition to the photos that business owners can upload directly through Google Places, these photos help potential customers get a better view of the decor, merchandise, food, and more on each business’ Place page.
We’ve also been taking 360-degree photography to help businesses owners showcase their locations further, and starting today you can experience that panoramic perspective for select businesses in the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
This experience, using Street View technology, includes 360-degree imagery of the business interior and storefront. With this immersive imagery, potential customers can easily imagine themselves at the business and decide if they want to visit in person.
We’re now starting to make these images available through the Place pages of select businesses we’ve photographed. When 360-degree imagery of a business is available, you’ll see an arrow appear over the thumbnail Street View image on that business’ Place page. Press the arrow to preview the storefront or interior, then click on the thumbnail to see the image in Street View.
With this pilot, you'll begin to see additional photo experiences on the Place pages of a growing number of businesses. As additional imagery becomes available for more locations in the coming months, you’ll also be able to enter the interior perspective of businesses directly from the Street View images of nearby roads on Google Maps.
We’re continuing this program with businesses in select cities in the United States, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, UK, South Korea, and France. If you would like to highlight your business to Google Maps users, please visit the Business Photos site to learn more and apply.
Last week, we invited a group of public relations and social media professionals to Google Austin to introduce them to the range of features offered as part of Google Places. Most of the attendees were experts on the basics (for instance, claiming a Place page), but many were surprised to learn about the other ways Google Places can help them connect with their customers.
The Dashboard
Once you’ve claimed your Place page, you can see detailed analytics on a handy dashboard, including information on the number of time your Place page was viewed (impressions) and the search terms your customers use to find you:
Ratings and Reviews
Customers can rate and review the places they go through Google, offering valuable feedback about what they liked and didn’t like about their experience. This information appears on the Place page for a business. Business owners also have the ability to respond to those reviews publicly — a great way to engage with customers and show you’re listening to their feedback. Once you claim your Place page and you’re logged in, you’ll see the option to respond to individual reviews.
Sharing Your Expertise
Beyond encouraging customers to rate and review their businesses via Google Places, attendees at our Austin Tech Talk also discussed how they could set up their own Google Places profile for their business to rate and review, as a way to show their community involvement and local support. Here’s what came out of a brainstorming session:
Restaurants could rate and review local farms, farmers markets, and artisans to show that they are using local ingredients.
Hotels could rate and review local attractions that may be of interest to their guests, or use their profile to provide their concierge with a “cheat sheet” of useful info.
Gyms could rate and review local restaurants to point out the healthiest menu items for their members so that they can reach their fitness goals.
These were just some of the many ideas that were shared!
Google Places Business Kit
The most talked-about topic of the night was the Google Places Business Kit, a box of info and schwag that business owners can request, detailing how they can better interact with their customers on Google. Some of the items a business owner can request include after-dinner mints and Place pin–shaped coffee stirrers, to remind and encourage customers to rate and review that business on Google.
What are some of the ways you’re using Google Places to connect with your customers? Learn more by visiting our Google Places Help Center.
Posted by Whitney Francis, Austin community manager
As users increasingly rely on tools like Google Maps and Places for information about the world around them, we're working hard to develop products that help local businesses highlight themselves and their offerings.
Last year, we introduced our trial for Google Tags, a way for businesses to highlight their organic Google Places listing with a yellow tag that showcases offers, photos, videos, menu, and reservations for a flat monthly fee.
Since that experiment began, tens of thousands of businesses have used Tags to help potential customers make easier, more informed decisions when searching. Throughout this period, we monitored Tags closely to learn more about our users' business needs and how they used the product.
We’ve made a decision to shift our efforts toward other present and future product offerings for local businesses, and will be discontinuing this trial. To that end, we’ve now halted new signups and will be working with existing participating businesses over the coming weeks to help them meet their marketing needs with other Google products where possible.
We’ve learned a lot from our Tags trial and will take that knowledge into account as we continue to find the best ways to serve users and local businesses alike. Lastly, we want to thank all of the businesses that were part of our Tags trial, and we hope we can meet their advertising needs with one of our existing products.
If you've ever spent your Saturday calling different stores or driving around town in search of one specific product, then it probably occurred to you that there must be a better way. Today we're announcing Local Product Availability on Google Place Pages - a new feature that automatically brings your offline catalog to the web, letting customers view your products and search your local inventory on your Place Page before visiting your store.
When you provide Google with local product availability data, your Google Place Page will now automatically include a new section, ‘Popular products available at this store’, featuring five popular products along with price and local availability. For shoppers unfamiliar with your business, this section shows the types of products available in your store.
If shoppers are looking for a specific item, they can click ‘Search within this store’ to search your product inventory to see if a particular item is in stock nearby.
Getting started To automatically display local product availability on your Google Place page, you’ll need to first share local availability data with Google through a Merchant Center account and claim your a Google Place page. For instructions on sharing local product availability with Google, read this Help Center article. Learn how to claim your Google Place page here.
Posted by Paul Lee, Senior Product Manager, Google Product Search
Every day we hear from business owners who think they need special skills to reach new customers online. Often they’re just overwhelmed by the seeming complexity of online marketing options. So they sit on the sidelines, eager to get in the game, but confused about where to start.
Sound familiar?
Google and Ink from Chase have teamed up this year to help small business owners get off the sidelines and into the game! As part of this commitment to helping small business owners, we jointly hosted the first Google-Ink from Chase ‘Grow Your Business Online’ event on March 15, 2011 at the JP Morgan Headquarters in New York City.
Over 200 Ink small business customers attended the program, living proof of how an incredibly diverse array of small business touch our lives every day - from chocolate shops to online gaming and private medical practices. The evening featured welcome comments from Richard Quigley, President of Ink from Chase, expert advice from AdWords evangelist Frederick Vallaeys on four ways for SMBs to market their business online and also included the Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s executive director, Daniel Gallant, talking about how online advertising helped their business grow.
One small business owner remarked that the tools and tips from Google experts on how to market small businesses online gave her “a new perspective of how to reach out to customers.” Another attendee found the Google Places page so compelling he went back to his business afterwards and “immediately verified my business’ Google Places page.”
Fresh off launching business outreach and support in Madison yesterday, we’re now adding our fifth city to the mix: Charlotte, North Carolina. Starting today, we’ll offer dedicated support for the more than 40,000 local businesses in the Charlotte area, helping them get noticed on Google and get more customers at their door.
More than 20 percent of all searches on Google each day have a local intent, and we want to make it as easy as possible for Charlotte businesses to get discovered whether folks are looking for BBQ, furniture stores or electricians. We’ve already begun sending the Places starter kits directly to local businesses. In addition to instructions on how to make the most of Google’s free online tools, it also features some ideas on how to get your customers to share their great experiences by rating and reviewing your business on Google. If you don’t receive a kit within the next few days, any Charlotte area business can also request one for free through the Google Places Catalog.
And, for businesses that are already “Recommended on Google,” we’re also including our NFC-enabled window decals that allow anyone with an NFC-enabled device, such as the Nexus S, to tap their phone against the decal and see all the relevant information about that business.
We’re excited to be in kicking things off in Charlotte and look forward to working with its great business community over the next several months.
We’ve been focused a lot over the past few months on raising awareness and spreading the word about how Google Places and Hotpot can help people discover great places and help businesses get more customers in the door. Today, we’re excited to announce a new addition to our quickly growing group of cities taking part in this campaign: Madison, Wisconsin.
With its large student population, growing tech community — including the Google office that opened in 2007 — and rich heritage surrounding small businesses, the capital of Wisconsin is an exciting addition. We’re really looking forward to working with the more than 15,000 local businesses in the area, helping them to get noticed on Google using our free suite of tools as part of Google Places.
In addition to having a dedicated team that will work with local businesses throughout Dane County, we’ve also begun mailing Google Places starter kits to thousands of local businesses in the area. These kits include instructions on how any business can claim their free Place page, as well as some samples of materials to help business owners encourage their customers to rate and review them on Google.
For those businesses who are already “Recommended on Google,” we’ll also be distributing our NFC-enabled window decals. These allow users with NFC-enabled devices, such as the Nexus S, to tap their phone against the decal and see all the information about that business.
As part of this launch, we’ve also partnered with the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce to offer a series of workshops beginning in early April that are open to all chamber members and will focus on step-by-step instructions and counseling on how Dane County businesses can make sure they are effectively managing their presence online. If you’re interested in attending, please contact your Chamber of Commerce representative.
Back in November, we introduced Hotpot, a new local recommendation engine powered by you and your friends. Using Hotpot is simple: you rate places on google.com/hotpot—restaurants, hotels, cafes—and add friends on Hotpot whose opinions you trust. Then the next time you perform a search, Google will serve up personalized results, listing places based on your tastes, as well as recommendations from your friends.
We’ve watched Hotpot grow and change over the last couple months, and today Hotpot is really going places: to a Google search box near you and around the world.
You can now enjoy Hotpot recommendations in your regular search results on Google.com. So say you’re looking for a restaurant in Barcelona. Go to Google and search [restaurant barcelona]. If a friend has rated a particular restaurant, you might see their rating and what they had to say about it—as well as their name and photo—directly beneath that restaurant’s listing. To see all recommendations by your friends, click “Places” on the lefthand side of the page, and choose “Friends only.” Remember, you’ll need to be logged in to your Google account in order to see recommendations.
Seeing place recommendations based on your tastes and those of your friends across more Google searches will make results more relevant to you and maybe lead you to discover a new gem. If you don’t have Hotpot friends yet, you can invite them to share all the places they love with you by using the “Friends” tab on google.com/hotpot.
But Hotpot will only be half the fun if you can’t share it with all your international friends. So starting today, we’re making Hotpot available in 38 new languages—including Chinese, French, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian and Spanish—allowing people to share their favorite places in their native language.
As a business owner, we encourage you to add a specific description of your business in the “description” field. This gives potential clients more information to understand what your business is about and see if your business matches what they are seeking. You can also use this field to provide further guidance about the location of your business which might be useful in some cases where it is hard to find, e.g. if the entrance of your business is only accessible via the rear.
Keep the description clean and concise, so it is helpful to users and catches their attention. A series of repeated keywords or categories may turn off potential customers, but a crisp and catchy summary of the services you offer help users determine if your business is right for them.
Choosing relevant categories
If you provide appropriate and accurate categories, we can better match your business listing to relevant user searches. We recommend choosing specific categories that describe the core of your business well instead of broad ones. A good way to find representative categories for your business is asking yourself the question “What is my business?” Be sure to capture what your business is as opposed to what it offers or sells - in that sense, “bakery” would be a good category as opposed to “cakes” or “bread”.
Also, do not include location information in the categories field. If you would like to provide such additional information about your business, you can use the description field and, if appropriate, the service areas feature.
You will be asked to choose at least one category from our standard list - just start typing in the categories field to see what is available via the auto-suggestions.
We recommend always choosing the best matching and most specific category for your business - for any specific category, Google will be able to automatically determine the more generic category as well. That means, if you are a Mexican restaurant, you should go for ‘Mexican Restaurant’ and not ‘Restaurant’ - Google then automatically knows that if you are a Mexican restaurant, you are also a restaurant.
You can provide up to five categories for your business listing. After picking a standard category, you can add up to four customized categories. To add another category, just click on ‘Add another category’ and an additional field will be triggered. Put only one category per entry field. Entering more than one category into a category field is not compliant with our quality guidelines and could result in your listing being suspended and not appearing in Google Places. In case you find it difficult to find an appropriate standard category to start with, just pick a category that fits best and add more specific custom categories. If you are uncertain about categorizing your business, you can also ask for advice in the Google Places help forum and discuss with other business owners.
We hope that this information helps you add a concise description and accurate categories to your business listing in Google Places. This gives potential clients more information to determine if your business matches what they are seeking. For further questions you can visit our Google Places help forum.
Back in October we announced Google Boost, a new advertising solution to help local businesses connect with potential customers in their area. Today we are excited to announce that Boost ads can appear on Google Search results pages on Android and iPhone devices.
Consumers increasingly use mobile devices to search for products and services, and Boost will give advertisers the opportunity to reach these customers exactly when they are looking for local businesses on their phones. This feature will automatically take effect for current and future Boost advertisers.
In case you aren’t familiar with Boost, it’s Google's new advertising product that helps business owners quickly create an online advertising campaign that targets local customers. Using information from the business’s free Google Places listing, Boost automatically suggests and creates text ads that appear on Google Search and Google Maps results pages.
Google Boost is now available in all U.S. cities to select business types. To find out if your business is eligible, sign in to your Places account (or create a free one if you haven’t yet) and visit the Dashboard. If Boost is not currently available to your business, fill out this short form and we’ll notify you when it is.
