So You Want the Blue Balloon Next to Your Google Maps Listing – How to Get It

Do you want that blue balloon found next to certain listings in Google Maps? Most listings have the red balloon, but you want the blue one as it really stands out. Here’s how to get it.

First, the blue balloon denotes a sponsored Google Maps listing. It means that this business is using Google AdWords Express to promote their website and Google Places page. If you are already using AdWords you may not want to proceed with these instructions, but say you don’t care about click performance, you just really want that blue balloon!

Allison at Google AdWords has explained to me how you can get the blue balloon. First, you will need to create a Google Places page that uses the SAME login as you use at Google AdWords for your regular pay per click account. Within your new Google Places account you will see a link to AdWords Express or you can login directly to AdWords Express at http://www.google.com/adwords/express/. Once you have your Places page set up, just enter your credit card information and website information.

AdWords Express will not allow you to manage your pay per click account as you typically do in the AdWords control panel. It is a streamlined and fully automated ad serving program. You cannot set keywords, bids, or targeting, or for that matter even create ad text. AdWords Express will set up generic keywords (in many cases just your business name), set your ad targeting to a 15 mile radius (you will not be able to change this), but it will allow you to select a monthly click spend range.

The next time you login to your regular Google AdWords account, you will then see a new ad campaign appear. The campaign name will consist of a string of letters and numbers and is grayed out. What you see is a read only copy of your Google Places AdWords Express advertising program. You cannot make changes in AdWords, just read what is there. To make any changes or to stop activity you will need to login to AdWords Express or your Google Places account.

Then voilà! You now have a blue balloon next to your paid ad that will show Google Maps and in some Google organic listings.

Do I recommend this course of action, meaning advertising on the super simplified and automated AdWords Express platform? Only if you are a do-it-yourselfer when it comes to AdWords, and only if your monthly budget is under $500 for clicks for a 30 day period. If you are a power advertiser and already have a well set up AdWords account and pay a professional manager, I do not recommend following this course of action just to get the blue balloon. As long as you have location extensions set up in your AdWords account, your AdWords ads are already showing in Google Maps – just not with the blue balloon.

From what I have seen in viewing these accounts once set up, the keywords are very, very general and the type that you would typically pause in a well-managed AdWords account as low performance high dollar click cost keywords. I personally don’t feel the cash drain and poorly targeted activity is worth it just to get a blue balloon.

An Update on Google Places This Month By Google

Google has been changing the information it shows on Google Places pages this last month. Here are a few updates that they have made and adjustments to our service offerings due to the changes.

First, it is important to know that we do not guarantee any specific placement on Google Places or improvement in your current placement. You should be very careful of using any firm that does guarantee this. Google has not revealed any specific information about how to optimize for Google Places to any resource and in fact we have debunked some of the techniques used by “Google Places guaranteed placement firms” and have written extensively on the topic of best practices for Google Places.

Since November 2011, typically your Google Places listing will link directly to your website. There may be a link in your listing that will forward readers to your Google Places review section, but no longer does Google force a reader to view a Google Places page in order to find out information about that business. Although we do cannot definitively identify that our updates to categories and additional details make a difference when Google “racks and stacks” the results for location specific searches, those elements that were hidden previously in Google’s Google Places recent updates are now again visible to readers who visit your Google Places page when they click an arrow to open up the additional information fields.

Google will only show four service categories and now only the first four or five additional detail items you list in your Google Places account. As a result our monthly service update pricing has changed from $40 a month to $25 a month. This service is only available to accounts who have used our set up service which costs $240. As an honest web services provider who wants to make sure that all we do benefits you on the Web, our decrease in service charges is based on the lower amount of time to update your account on a monthly basis.

You can read more about our Google Places Set Up services on our website.

 

Google Places Changes Limited Information Now Visible on Google Places Pages

I wanted to share with you a letter I sent out earlier this month to our Google Places clients. I think that you should be similarly aware of the changes that we are seeing in Google Places that affect the use of account set up and management services including our own. You will always get the truth from us on things that have changed on the Web, even if it affects our service offerings.

For now, we are evaluating if we will continue to offer Google Places management services or create a new and revised program.

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I wanted to keep you updated with the changes that Google has been making in the last several weeks to Google Places.

First, it used to be that when your listing was shown in a local search that the first page in the search results Google showed was your Google Places page. It was crucial that this page be optimized for your services for local placement.

These past several weeks I have seen a change in the way Google returns Google Places. Now it appears that Google ranks your listing, but is driving traffic NOT to your Google Places page, but rather directly to your website. For some accounts Google shows a link to the places page which now really just shows an owner comment section (which we update monthly) and your Google reviews from customers.

Although I am not sure yet if Google is still using the information that we update on your account to rack and stack listings, what we have been doing in our monthly updates for Google Places accounts is not visible to the consumer when they click into the Google Places page – only reviews are visible and the “owners” comments.

For now I am not discounting the importance of what we do in a Google Places monthly update but am watching carefully so that every service you purchase from us has value. If based on this new information you would like to stop our $40 per month Google Places update service to see what happens to your listing, just let me know.

If as I evaluate further and if I see that what Google has changed makes our update service not meaningful for you, I will make sure to advise you so.

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At this point, I don’t have a definitive answer to let you know about Google Places, but I do feel that we will be changing our program based on what is visible to the customer as well as potentially creating a Google Review Getting program. Stay tuned as we try to reach some conclusions on where your money is best spent for Google Places.

Responding to Unfavorable Online Reviews

Getting a bad review online can be maddening, but don’t make it worse by responding without putting in a lot of thought to how your own response will be perceived by other future customers.

I have a client who had a very poor review. When you are in business, you can’t please everyone, but in this case the office manager shot off a rebuttal that when I read it, I just cringed. It made a bad situation much worse. It portrayed the office staff as angry, resentful, argumentative, and vindictive. OUCH!

Sometimes a bad review can be a wakeup call. When you get a bad review, step back and look at it, could it be truthful, or have a grain of truth to it? It is very important to take a careful look to make sure that there is not a change needed on your part such as a change in office policy, customer service, or staff retraining.

If you feel that a rebuttal must be made. Focus on the positive, express concern for a problem, offer special attention from top management to repair the situation. Encourage the reviewer to recontact the office for a refund, redo, or credit on future service. Don’t write a hot rebuttal that trashes the reviewer or accuses them of being unfair or dishonest. This will only work to hurt you and make you look like the review was really true based on your hot angry response.

You can’t fight unfair reviews, but you can work to soften the blow and maybe even become better by taking the review as constructive criticism. Just be careful in your response and work to repair a poor situation not to make it worse with your own comments.

Google Places Tags Do They Work?

So does that little yellow icon that you just bought for $25 for the month that Google will show next to your Google Places aka Google Maps listing work to drive traffic?

Interesting question and here is the statistical data from one client that shows it is not worth the money.

Before the Tag: 14,150 impressions with 1400 actions

After the Tag: 10.351 impressions with 1001 actions

So traffic did not increase nor did actions. Additionally the clicks into the website also decreased.

So why would anyone want to pay $25 for the Tag icon? Well I can think of several times when the Tag may actually help. If you put a discount or special offer in the wording of your Tag, you may have terrific results. In our test case the client did not want to use a promotion and only wanted to highlight his web address.

As Google offers 30 days of the Tag free it may be worth it to your business to test the use of a Tag, but only with a promotional offer. Make sure if you do this that you print the page of your 30 day results in the control panel to use as your benchmark as there is no way to sort data and review old figures if you forget. The control panel will only show the most current 30 day results.

Then make a note on your calendar to review your After figures and compare the two; doing your own statistical test. Make sure you deactivate your tag is you didn’t like your results by clicking the billing tab and then deactivate or you will get billed for the next 30 days of service.

If you find out Tags have worked for you, make sure to leave a comment and your before and after stats to help us all out!

Google Boost Looks a Lot Like Yahoo Local

Google Boost Ad Image

If you’ve been around for a while you will know what I mean when I refer to the now defunct Yahoo Local, but Google Boost sure looks a lot like it!

That being said, I am really watching Google Boost carefully. Google Boost a new monetization tactic being used for Google Places aka Google Maps and is currently being tested in Chicago, San Francisco, and Houston. If you use it, you set up your account, add your credit card and select one of three click levels for a month. Google does the rest. It creates pay per click ads, keywords, manages your cost per click. All you do is pay.

And pay you will, with a totally automated ad serving and automated click costs don’t expect Google Boost to be saving you any money. In the Yahoo Local model, you selected how many clicks you wanted to get each month and Yahoo delivered. You even tied up the top spots in organic-looking placement on the Yahoo Local search engine. So far in the beta testing the Google Boost ads are differentiated only with a blue map icon. They look similar to an organic listing.

Additionally, Google Boost ads will appear on Google Places, Google Maps searches and even on Google.com. My feeling is that this will never replace Google AdWords, but that Google is looking to sop up the market when it comes to Mom and Pop shops with low budgets that don’t want to get into AdWords or users who think AdWords is so complicated. Google Boost is a step below even the Google Starter Edition.

But Google will make tons of money off of this new vehicle and this is why I am really watching Google Boost. You should be too!