Search Engine Optimization
WHAT'S NEW IN GOOGLE LOCAL SEARCH
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Let's jump straight in and see 'What's New in Local Search' for March 2014.
The most controversial change made is to the Business Listing Quality Guidelines allowing people to add a single
descriptor to their business name in their Places listing. Here is the blog post from Mike Blumenthal.
Here is what Google’s official blog post mentions:
Your title should reflect your business’s real-world title.
In addition to your business’s real-world title, you may include a single descriptor that helps customers
locate your business or understand what your business offers.
Marketing taglines, phone numbers, store codes, or URLs are not valid descriptors.
Examples of acceptable titles with descriptors (in italics for demonstration purposes) are
"Starbucks Downtown" or "Joe’s Pizza Restaurant". Examples that would not be accepted would be
"#1 Seattle Plumbing", "Joe’s Pizza Best Delivery" or "Joe’s Pizza Restaurant Dallas".
We aren’t exactly sure what Google will really allow. However, we advise to wait a while and see how this plays
out. Do not go too aggressive with adding the descriptor to your business name. Don't be the guinea pig i.e.
make changes for which you will have to work more for later.
In another announcement, an important change is that some business owners are being required to update and
save their Google Place listings. Google has been sending this scary warning:
Action Required: You have 3 weeks to save your Google Places Listing… …If you did receive this email, don't
worry. Please log into Places for Business, take a look at your business information, update it if necessary, and
click “Submit.” You'll need to do this for all listings in your account by February 21, 2014, so they can stay on
Google Maps. Otherwise, you'll need to add your business information and undergo PIN verification using Google
Places again.
Here’s what Jade Wang from Google had to say:
We are making some changes to Google Places for Business and Google Maps so we can continue
providing people with the best experience when they're looking for local businesses. As part of this
process, we're asking business owners to review and confirm some of the information in their Google
Places accounts so we can keep showing it to Google users. We know this will be a few extra steps for
merchants, and we apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your time.
We have sent business owners affected by these changes an email entitled "Action Required: You have 3
weeks to save your Google Places Listing".
If you received this email, there’s no need worry. You simply need to login to Places for your Business, review
your business information, update it if necessary, and click Submit.
And finally, Mike Blumenthal tells us why businesses need to take control of the photos on their Google+ pages.
Upload good photos now before someone else uploads bad ones.
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