Google Places importing wrong review ratings

The greatest asset for a business’s  Local Business Listing is favorable reviews placed on the listing  by satisfied customers.  New customers seeing a poor review rating can drive customers to pass you by and contact your competitors. Hopefully this will be a short term problem, but you should check your business listing on Google Places.  [...]

Google Tags plus First Page equals New Customers

At $25.00 per month, paying for Google newest advertising tool Google Tags within Google Places can be a great value.  Several of my clients are starting to use Google Tags and seeing results. Last week I posted a description of what is Google Tags, I thought it would be useful to see a real life [...]

Google Places Rolls out Tags

Up until the last few weeks, Google places has been a free tool for local businesses to promote their business. If you have not verified your business within Google Places you need to do that now (Start here -Google Places).  If you have verified your listing within Google Places, the next step may be making [...]

Save Money - Evaluate your Yellow Pages Investment

In 2010, the properly informed Yellow Pages customer  has all the advantage in negotiating with any of the Yellow Pages Providers. Today advertising in Yellow Pages is only one of many ways new customers can learn about your products and services. You have strong alternatives and Yellow Pages knows it. Yellow Page Providers need your [...]

Yelp Reviews back on Google Places

After Yelp walked away from a $500M offer from Google, Yelp reviews which were a prime source of reviews placed on Google’s local business listings (Now called Google Places), were removed.  Yelp reviews were still indexed by Google and would come up on searches, but were not integrated into a individual business Google Place.  Since [...]

Retailers – Get a Smartphone Now!

SMARTPHONE-A POWERFUL TOOL IN THE HANDS OF CONSUMERS Smart Phones are being used by consumers to make better purchases decisions , and retailers can’t afford to ignore its power.  A Smartphone combines  the  information of the internet with the geographic knowledge of GPS to create a unique tool.   While shopping, consumers can now compare [...]

This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series Google Places

Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world. Local businesses can claim or create their Place Page on Google through the Local Business Center, which enables them to verify and supplement their business information to include hours of operation, photos, videos, coupons, product offerings and more. Google has changed [...]

Google’s Nearby Places – Friend or Foe of Local Business?
This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series Google Places

If you do not already know, I am a big fan of Google’s Local Business Listing, now called Google Places. For local businesses, it can be the most effective way to get new business and it is free from Google. Google wants you to embellish your Google Place, but Google has control of it, not [...]

Online Reviews, Powerful Advertising
This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series Google Places

Many established business do great work, have excellent customer service and have NO REVIEWS on Google or Yahoo. I am not surprised by this. Are you? What I find surprising is that more companies are not making an effort to get their customers to review their business on the Internet. Positive Reviews have a direct [...]

The Dissection of a Local Business Listing
This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series Google Places

Google’s local search algorithm can be reduced to the following equation: Ranking = Location + Information + Corroboration + Input + X Understanding these variables is a critical part of successfully marketing your business online. Small Local Businesses have just two meaningful representations in the local search space: a website and a business listing or [...]

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