Category: Google Places

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Google Places to Show Your Customer Reviews from Your Own Website

This big news was just announced last week by Matt Cutts from Google; that Google Places will now show your on customer reviews posted on your own website if they have been coded with Rich Snippets Reviews code. You can read the full FAQ section from Google on this topic and other questions, but for most of us this is huge news.

The big key here is that your testimonials and services reviews residing on your own website have to be coded properly with the hReview Rich Snippet code to be picked up. If it is coded properly Google Maps now known as Google Places will eventually place all these reviews, without additional intervention from you, on your Google Places page.

As reviews you may have solicited may be powerful and focused on your services offerings and will typically be favorable, or you would not have posted them yourself, this is a huge boon to every business that wants to build reviews to achieve better organic Google Maps or Google Places placement.

See the sample code here under the section microformats: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=146645

Here is exactly what Google says on this topic:

How will Google treat businesses posting testimonials with review mark up on their own site? Will these be treated as a review by the Place Page?

Testimonials will be treated as business reviews on the Place Page.

If I annotate my site with structured markup, how fast may results appear on the Place Page?

It typically has the potential of appearing within a couple of weeks of your page being indexed by Google. Currently we will only be able to recognize basic business listing information (name, address, phone number) and surface reviews and photos.

If you have not coded your testimonials, now is the time to review that you have them coded in a format that will help you with Google Places.

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Finally, We Launch Google Maps Placement Services

Google Maps is now Google Places!

I have done quite a bit of research and writing on the topic of how to improve your Google Maps, now known as Google Places, placement. For many businesses that sell locally, like lawyers and pest control service companies, placing well on Google Places can mean big business and terrific free exposure.

I am asked repeatedly if we offer services in this area, and have been performing services for a few select clients over the past year. However, we are now ready to roll out a program that may help to garner you the placement you want for your local selling business. Please be aware we don’t guarantee placement, but from our experience and understanding of what seems to work in Google Maps, many of our clients have had their listing become visible (when it was not previously) and some have nice improvement in their position.

We invite you to click in to read our full pricing and information on this new service. Set up is $240 and monthly updates are $40. Included in our set up is the purchase of 20 images to rotate in your Google Places account. Although this service may not be a good match for every business, if you sell locally, it is one you will want to review carefully.

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We Don’t Offer Google Maps Services – Why?

I just got another phone call this past week wanting to purchase our “guaranteed Google Maps placement services”.  This is the third client in two weeks or so that I have had to tell we don’t offer this service and to please be careful what they buy.

First no one and no firm can guarantee top Google Maps placement. In fact although I have written and researched intensively on the topic of Google Maps, even I don’t know what the winning combination is. It appears that neither does Google!

What appears to work in one marketplace is totally a mish mash without any direction or clear focus in another market. Google is adding new things to Google Maps with some changes to the name and AdWords integration just this past month alone.

Personally I think Google will work to monetize Google Maps errr Google Placements, but in the meantime a cottage industry has cropped up promising business owners guaranteed top placement. I’ve debunked some of these techniques and so at this time I won’t even take a customer’s money to perform services as there is simply no clear direction on what to do to place well.

I have guessed some things and am using some techniques for select clients, but we are not ready to roll out a service anytime soon.

If you are shopping around, make sure to read my blog and newsletter as I have openly shared what I do know about placement, but be very careful what you buy from others as there is no clear direction for success that I have found at this point no matter what the firm tells you.

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Google Maps Optimization or Account Crashing?

Just recently one of our clients asked our opinion on a cold call she received with an offer to optimize her Google Maps account for big money. What the business said they would provide was intriguing to me so we agreed that my client would be my “guinea pig”. What I found out is highly interesting and makes me concerned about anyone spending money on Google Maps optimization at this time.

This is what we did to match the same protocol the Google Maps optimization business said they would provide.

  1. I set up a domain name on GoDaddy that was keyword dense and used a term that the client did not place on Google Maps for already. I then pointed the domain to the client’s website and masked the domain so that it appeared that the website had the new domain name.
  2. I set up a GMmail account and tied it to a new Google Maps account. The business was adamant that a GMail account had to be set up as in their words  “Google gave preferential treatment to Google Maps accounts that had a GMail email address”. *I just have to say at this point, that this is bunk. I believe that the business wanted the GMail account so that all interaction with Google Maps would be under their control. I have never seen a situation where Google has preferred an account with a GMail email address over a non GMail address.
  3. I set up a new Google Maps account targeted to highlight the service that the client was not showing for already on Google Maps.
  4. I then did a phone PIN verification with the client to complete the Google Maps set up.

Now it is important to know that this client had excellent Google Maps placement on all terms and locations except for this one term we used. What happened next may warn you to stay away from businesses that are selling Google Maps Optimization.

In about two weeks or maybe even less the new Google Maps account was showing, but what was concerning was that it had taken over the old account. Now, all Google Maps entries were showing our “bogus” URL! In other words the new account superseded all the placement from the old account. That was particularly concerning to me as the URL did not match the URL on the “real” website.

I took immediate action to correct the problem, but what this shows is that if you already have a Google Maps account and you pay an optimization firm to work over your account, you are not adding to what you have, you are replacing what you have. If the tactic has been to create a “bogus” masked domain that is keyword dense then suddenly your website information does not match your domain and the reader cannot bookmark any of your inside pages.

You do not need optimization to place on Google Maps! In fact paying an optimization firm that is going to perform the functions I have detailed may work to hurt you more than help you by diluting your URL , brand, and confusing the customer with two domain names.

I recommend for Google Maps, setting up an account using your legitimate business domain, email, and location. But I do recommend a monthly review of content, update of coupons, addition of new images and in general a “laying on of the hands” on all content there. By keeping your information fresh you can place well on Google Maps.

For businesses that currently do not place well on Google Maps I recommend updating your content and then setting a schedule to update and freshen content weekly to see if you can get improvement this way.

For businesses that are already on Google Maps and place well, don’t mess with anything except to keep your account fresh. To try to optimize an account to boost placement even further using the optimization techniques that I have tried may actually work to harm your account.