The growth of people and businesses getting involved with Googles social media platform looks likely to hit record levels this year as more and more start to discover the benefits. For businesses there is huge untapped potential in building a brand, discovering new customers and enriching your website search ranking. However, for the uninitiated, realising that potential can become a path of frustration and confusion. The Google Places products forum designed to provide help has to be one of the busiest help desks in the world with scores of frustrated business users struggling to get to grips with the platform. And yet when you get it right the results can be dramatic.
One of the issues that we have encountered recently with several new clients is the difficulty in creating a Places for business page and get it wrong here and you could damage not only the business listing but confuse customers and the Google robots. In one case we discovered 5 different Google+ listings for the same business.
In a way it’s not surprising as Google in trying to make it easy to do has created at least 3 ways to create a business listing and it is very important to understand that not all Google+ pages are created equal. You can, in the UK now for instance create a listing via Mapmaker. Google allows you to make edits direct into Google Maps. It can be a quick way to create a business listing however there are many potential problems in Mapmaker and I strongly advise no one to do this when it’s your own business.
I recommend Google Places for Business dashboard. The very first step is to create the right page. When you create a page you will be presented with a set of options as in the image at the top of this post. If you are creating a for a local business that will put your businesses on Google Maps then always click Create a Local Business of Place. Follow the instructions from here and you should be on the way to getting your business on the map. If you select any other option you will create a Google+ profile that will not have the same features and benefits. Create a Google+ Page
For advice and guidance in setting up your business listing call us and we can have you up on running with the correct listing in no time.