Google Places Setup and Optimisation

When Google decided to mount an offensive on the local business directory market in 2010, culminating in the arrival of Google Places (aka Google Local or Local Business Listings), the concept seemed a straightforward one, that they would create a 7 pack(listing of 7 businesses) for each local business category along with contact details and geo locating pins on that area’s version of Google Maps. The theory that it would display the 7 most relevant businesses to your search seemed difficult to pin down at the time but just as with SEO and the organic search results, Google’s mantra was “we want to display the most relevant results”, meaning the onus is on you as the business owner to demonstrate to our algorithm that you are the most relevant for a particular category. What ensued was a worldwide realisation of the power of being listed in the 7 pack(sometimes a 10 pack,3 pack,1pack) yet Business owners having no idea what they needed to do. We are relevant they would say, why does Google not treat us as relevant? Why is my competitor listed in the holy grail while my business is not listed?

Since then Google has tested many different variable factors of how they will display Google Places including displaying it within the Organic Results, displaying it at the top of the search results or leaving it out completely for many local search phrases. Understanding what generates “Relevance” is the key factor just as understanding what makes your website relevant for your key phrases with Google. This is where we come in, having set up many listings, optimised many listings and been involved in troubleshooting a range of listings in many different markets and countries we have gained an experience and knowledge of what “Relevance” means to Google Places allowing us to maximise our clients chances of being “one of the chosen few” and help them to generate regular leads by putting them in front of their potential clients. Online Marketing evolves and will continue to evolve but Google has made a long term statement by establishing Google Places as the “go to” option to find local business options to meet their requirements.

Google Places Problems and Troubleshooting

If you have been lucky enough to never encounter the Google places rejection algorithm you will have saved yourself a lot of heartache. Google has been fighting the battle against spam listings ever since Places was born and loophole after loophole have been closed to stop the spamming fraternity using and ruining Places. There are still spam listings out there occupying valuable Places real estate and preventing genuine businesses from being featured but the problem has been dramatically reduced. The unfortunate side effect of this is that “claiming a listing” in Google Places has become a very complicated affair for many people. The issue is clouded by many variable factors just one of which is that Google has been “scraping” listings from third party sites, so for example your business may already have a listing live in the places system but it may not include the upto date details or may be even wrong. The scraping of listings from the likes of the Yellow Pages in theory should reflect the business details acurately which it does in many cases but unfortunately not in many others and the system to correct this is extremely complicated. We have become deep experts at navigating this process and troubleshooting Google Places problems in general.