Google Search is placing more and more emphasis on local results these days. Great news for brick and mortar and service businesses!
If your biz isn’t listed in Google Places yet, what are you waiting for? Go to www.google.com/places and “claim” or create your free business listing. This gives you a much better shot at being at the top of the Google listings.
There are a variety of factors we take into account to provide you with results that match your local search, and three of the primary signals are relevance, prominence and distance. The best way to help potential customers connect with your business is to ensure that your basic company information like its name, address and phone number, are accurate, and then to add rich details like photos, hours of operation and more.
Google Places has been around for a good while; what’s new is their “local recommendation engine” – Hotpot – where you (and your customers) can rate local businesses. And utilizing their almost omnipotent interconnection abilities, Google will also show you what your friends think of those businesses:
… based on ratings from you and your friends – can definitely affect the ranking of the local businesses you see in your organic search results. If you’re signed in to your Google account and have enabled Hotpot, you’ll get personalized recommendations based on the ratings you and your friends provided – making it easier for you to discover new places you’ll enjoy.
There are also a couple of new advertising opportunities for local biz – Tags and Boost. The Google folks promise not to give priority to their advertisers, instead, using the reviews and organic traffic results, so you may want to ask your customers to log in and leave their opinions.
See the Google blog for more complete info.
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