Google Places takes the Driver’s Seat
Answering…What Is The Biggest Change In Google’s Algorithm in Years?
You may have noticed the recent change in Google’s listings for local searches.
If you enter a search with a city and region – like “Santa Cruz CA Realtors” – the search results now carry a number of Google Places listings with a red bubble or pin with a letter in it beside the rankings, interspersed with the organic search results. These are also displayed on the page with Google Maps showing the location of the businesses with the same letters and red pins on the map.
This change in the way local search results are displayed is one of the biggest changes in Google’s ranking algorithm in some time. The result has been to fill Page One with Google Places listings pushing most of the organic results lower –suddenly making Google Places rankings far more important than ever before.
Google says approximately twenty-five percent of searches are local searches. If you’re a business owner it’s now very important for you to have a company like Blackwood Industries managing and optimizing your Google Places listing and optimize it for local search. Google is giving you a new angle to promote yourself with this new algorithm. Blackwood Industries has a proven a process to develop your Google places presence to deliver results that will pay you back. ROI!!
The ranking algorithms for Google Places listings in many ways tends to parallel organic search results with the ranking factors of the business’s website appearing in these listings. The onsite optimization of your website pointed to on your Google Places page is very important.
Other elements of this new algorithm however, give special weight not only to the number of reviews Google users have given the business, but also to the number and depth of reviews appearing on other local search sites like citysearch.com, insiderpages.com, judysbook.com ect. The proximity of your business to the center of the city searched also carries extra weight in the Google Places algorithm.
This new algorithm enables business owners who understand the importance of getting reviews and the other ways of search engine optimizing for Google Places to now appear higher on Page One than older more established sites that may have more links pointing to them and higher Page Rank – but have now gotten pushed further down in the rankings to Page Two.
It’s also vital for business owners to grasp that Google Places visitors can have a higher converting rate than more generic organic searches covering wider areas. Blackwood Industries will provide you a lot of valuable local market tracking information of how people are finding you and visiting your Google Places once we begin working with Google Places profile.
What is Google Places?
With the infusion of Google Maps, SEO and Google’s indexing abilities, local searches for service providers will produce a different type of result. This result set is now knows as Google Places results and is similar to a Yellow Pages type of listing with one big difference, its relevancy is sorted by Google.
Using aggregated data from various review sites Google determines which service providers are worth being listed on the first page and who isn’t. We provide local search engine optimization for this area of Google’s space.
What is Google Places SEO?
With Google deploying the new service we have studied its features and opportunities, Blackwood Industries optimizes your business listing on Google Places according to the methodology Google uses for achieving the highest local search marketing ranking. Then we begin online reputation management on various sites to make sure your business is represented in the positive way it deserves and minimizing the effect of any published bad reviews.
How much time does local Optimization SEO take?
Setting up your site for local SEO and optimizing it will take up to two weeks to accomplish and depends on various variables such as your location, telephone number, footage of your business, QR codes, copy writing listing’s description and more. Managing your businesses reputation through Google Places SEO is a critical necessity that needs to be cultivated as easy as possible.
Online reputation management is a steady ongoing process executed by finding and replacing various sources to point to your business as a solid provider using optimized business profiles on various sites and citations on those profiles from your satisfied customers. Local search marketing is part of your online profile. Make sure everyone that searches for a business in your industry and area gets an accurate view of how you stand out from your competition.
Video Marketing is a critical step to providing media content to Google Places for maximum ranking results. We will build your company a custom video and place it on your profile. We will and maintain content distribution through link wheels and other strategic video properties.