It seems Google is moving steadily ahead with its plan to integrate all its services with Google+. The latest integration being Google+ Pages showing up in Places search results. As reported by Mike Blumenthal of Blumenthals.com posted about what was showing up in Google’s local results.

When they keyed “transmission servicing lexington ky” in the search box, the results showed regular and familiar Google Places listings, but there was something additional too. There was a Google Plus Page icon right next to one Places search result.

Clicking on the icon, the user is redirected to a search result page displaying only Google+ page.

And if you click on the listing, then you are taken to the Page owners personal account and not their Google+ page.

If indeed Google+ Pages have been integrated with Places, then it is the right opportunity for businesses to create and highlight their Google+ presence, as well as keep it updates with the latest information and offers.

To know more about getting a Google+ Page badge for your site and also creating a Google+ Page, read this. What do you think of this integration? Is your Google+ Page also showing up in search results?

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Google Integrating Google+ Pages With Places Search Results?

Google's road to local has just been altered, and the local search stakes have been raised by the search engine in Google Places. These changes in the local results SERPs on Google search was announced by Google recently.

What's New In Google Places SERP?

The changes are quite noticeable in the presentation of local results SERPs. There is a new panel on the right of the search results, that has a ton of information, as compared to a simple map that came up earlier. This new display makes it very easy for users to gather information about a particular place. There is information regarding location, timings, menu links and links to reviews. Yelp reviews are missing from the right panel, as it was decided by Google Places a while back.

The first “pegman” image on the left side below the map is a link to Google maps and Street view photos. The street view feature was introduced recently by Google and gives the users a complete 360 degree view of the place. They can gauge the ambiance and layout of the set up. Down the panel, users will be able to see the price range while the “at a glance” summary can come in really handy in giving a quick idea about the place.

In the case one searches for a place like a restaurant in an area, then they will get a list of places locally. The instant preview feature comes in handy to show detailed information about the various places one users will hover over the “>>” symbol that appears to the right of each result.

The Takeaways For SEOs:

These new changes, ensure a lot more of the Place Page into the SERP and must be paid attention to by local SEOs. The richer right panel will also eliminate any right column ads “above the fold,” now with the new search results. Do make a note that the search engine shows the new search results when the search is made for an individual business location. In the case the business has multiple locations the search positions will not get any better.

Also, sites that show up in the “more reviews” list have a good chance of getting more traffic. What other SEO benefits do you see, do share your views.

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Local Search More Prominent In New Google Places SERP!

It is time to capitalize on the local search. With mobile usage increasing and several other behavioral changes among the consumers, local search is a big business opportunity now. MDG Advertising has prepared an ifographic on the same titled – "Local Search Evolved", here it is:

Do you agree with the observations on this infographic? Share your views below.

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The Evolving Local Search – Infographic!

If your business is on Google Places, then the address and related information will be updated automatically with the information that Google will gather from users and “third parties/trusted sources.” This was announced by Google on the LatLong Blog recently and it stated that the update will be done automatically if they think that the information is more accurate and up to date than the Places Dashboard.

Google says, “We’re introducing a new process that helps streamline the way updates are made to potentially outdated or incorrect business listings. Previously, verified business listings would always reflect the information provided by its owner – even if we received data about an updated name, address, or hours of operation. But now, if a user provides new information about a business they know – or if our system identifies information from another source on the web that may be more recent than the data the business owner provided via Google Places – the organic listing will automatically be updated and the business owner will be sent an email notification about the change.”

Google has added that business owners can always log in to their Google Places account and make further edits, if the information provided in incorrect or incomplete. Also these updates will have no effect whatsoever on the online ads from business owners using AdWords or AdWords Express programs.

Why Was This Needed?

There was massive outrage globally when Google allowed users to update the information about a business listed on Google Place. This was a green signal for spammers, disgruntled customers or vengeful ex-employees to list the business as “closed”. Google was at the receiving end of quite some flak for this. However, it announced that it is working on a solution. And now has come up with the automatic update plan.

But Why Automatic Updates?

Google says that they cannot rely on business owners to continuously update their Google Places listing. That is why they use a network of other sources like partners, users and other authoritative sources to verify the details about a business, and if they deem fit, they update the details automatically. As Google says, “We recognize that amidst all the work that goes into running a successful enterprise, remembering to update their Google Places account may not always be top of mind. Oftentimes, a neighborhood local or a loyal customer is eager to help their favorite business update its online presence.”

Are The Businesses Still Safe?

This question remains unanswered as, it is quite a possibility that the "trusted external sources" can be easily manipulated. Incorrect data about the business can still be implemented, leading to inaccurate details be updated automatically. However, if this can actually happen remains to be seen.

What do you think? Do leave your comments.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Now Listings Being Updated Automatically In Google Places!

Every SEO seems to have different views about the nature of our industry, ranging from “exciting” to “dynamic” to “ever changing”. Despite these conflicting views on the over all nature, it is an undeniable fact that the local online advertising market has grown leaps and bounds in the past few years.

This positive trend is expected to remain the same according to BIA/Kelsey forecast that suggests the local online ad revenues are to double between 2010 and 2015 to a startling US$45 billion in the US market.

Whilst it looks good on paper, in reality what do things really seem like globally for the local SEO providers? The 2011 Local SEO Industry Survey's main aim is to answer this question.

The survey carried out by BrightLocal.com polled over 1,150 local SEOs on various topics that included annual turnover, services and prices, growth predictions and which SEO tasks they enjoyed or disliked the most. Whilst it is an ongoing survey  following are the 6 key findings charts that have been put together from the initial responses. For full survey findings click here.

The finding of The 2011 Local SEO Industry Survey are:

1. 31% of SEOs turned over $30,000 or less in the last 12 months

2. Local SEOs handled more clients this year as opposed to last year

3. 31% of the respondents were debutant SEO in 2010

4. Local SEOs are now managing more clients than they did 12 months ago

5. Over 50% of all local SEOs have a new business success rate of 70% or more

6. Over 82% of the local SEOs expect to grow their business in the next year

Additional Findings:

The survey also explores the participant's attitudes towards Social Media and the impact it has in the local business realm. Furthermore, it also asked them about their daily SEO activities and list the one's the liked and the disliked the most. It turns out Link Building and Directory submissions topped the rank for being the most boring tasks. The preferred SEO activities included developing new business leads and self-marketing which consisted of writing blogs, attending conferences, tweeting etc.

Benchmark your business:

As it is an ongoing survey that runs until December 2011 local SEOs still have the opportunity to take part in the survey. SEOs can benchmark themselves directly against similar SEOs; the survey is divided into 5 categories depending on types of SEO:

• Freelance SEO
• Local Agency
• National Agency
• In-House
• Web-designer/Other

So why not be a part of this survey!

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2011 Local SEO Industry Survey Brings Out Interesting Facts!

Google has been working on the look of all its services- Gmail, Maps and everything. The purpose is to integrate the look of all products with with Google+. Now, it's Google Places that has been revamped by Google. The new look is crisper, and the off site reviews have been removed.

The New Look:
The new Google Places has a clean and crisp interface. It is easier for people to spot what they are looking for. It is uncluttered than the previous places page, visually bolder and easier to read.

The 'Call For Action' Buttons have been placed prominently on the page, so as to encourage users to come forward and share their views. These are:

• Write A Review- There is hard to miss 'Write a review' buttons on the page. There are two of these buttons, at the top of the page and under the photos. The buttons are highlighted in bold red colours, so it is unlikely that you will miss it. They invite users to write a review about the place.
  
• Rate With Stars- There is a set of 5 stars with the words 'your rating'. It is pretty obvious that in case the user is happy by just rating the place, then they can just leave a number of stars
  
• Upload A Photo- Another new button on the page allows the users to upload a photo of the place in question. As of now, there is not any definitive information if this will generate lots of new images on these pages. People would upload from their mobiles, but that functionality doesn’t appear to be present yet.
  

This design is very mobile friendly with their easier to spot and use the buttons for important actions. So, good news for tablet and smartphone users!

The External Reviews Are Gone -
This change is in the Places page is glaring. There are no more review snippets from 3rd party review websites. Instead there are snippets only from reviews added directly on a business’s Google Places page. So what you see prominently is user reviews. In the earlier Places page, snippets from review websites such as Yelp and Trip Advisor were shown. But now there are just links to review sites . And that too at the bottom of the page.

It is known fact that the search engine giant was criticized for using outside reviews. A previous design and functionality changes in Places led to many companies backing off, as they saw Google as a competitor. This led to several sites blocking Google from streaming their data. The sites wanted Google to stop using their data for a competing service. Sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, were among those who were demanding antitrust investigation against Google.

So, it seems like Google has removed the outside reviews as a response to the antitrust concerns. However, Google says that it plans more changes in Places and also integrate some of the information from Place pages in the web search results. Also the focus will be more on local places for every user's search.

Citations/ Reference Sections Are Gone:
The older Places page showed a citations/references section- This section would display a selection of other web pages that referenced the business. These Citations/references were earlier considered the equivalent of ‘links’ in organic SEO.

What This Means For Businesses-
With the 3rd party reviews pushed back- as a business owner, you must work on making users write reviews for you. Secondly, at present the Places page is not displaying all this information about your business- Email address- Menu- Reservations- Optional attributes / Additional details- Service area. This was questioned by owners, and this is how Vanessa from Google explained it, “So just because we're not showing it, doesn't mean it's not helpful for us to have – it helps our system ensure that your organic listing appears and ranks appropriately on Google and Google Maps when potential customers perform searches related to your service”.

So, the bottom line is that you must ensure better feedback from your customers, as a business owner.

The Conclusion:
The reason why Google is working on all its projects is to achieve brand unity. It wants to link every project to the basis of Google as an entity. This integration works in the favour of Google+ and other projects in the pipeline. Google is working on more changes and we can expect them shortly.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Experience The 'New' Google Places!

It appears, in the Google Places search result, of the main searches, the third part reviews whilst still being linked to the result are not taken into consideration for the total reviews. Google's own reviews are only being depicted in the review count.

Maybe it its just a minute change, but with Google making many changes as of late, maybe this little change might be a part of the big picture. Perhaps this is an indicator that Google is not done yet. Expect lot of rankings to change for local listing!

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

3rd Party Review Counts Are No Longer Shown On Google Places Search!

David Mihm has published his annual survey of SEO Experts.

This report has feedback from 33 bloggers and practitioners. There are two key areas in which it differs from previous years.

1. Rather than rating the importance of particular criteria on a sliding scale of -5 → 0 → +5, this year featured a drag-and-drop numerical ranking system in an effort to make the survey results both more precise and easier for the participants to complete.
2. With the introduction of Blended Place Search since last year's survey, I felt it was essential to ask participants about any possible differences they perceived between the two algorithms. Thus, responses are presented in a "split-screen" format below to allow for an easy comparison.

Main ranking factors for Google Maps/Places SEO are:

1. Quality of inbound links matters.
2. Write City, State in the Landing Page title.
3. Verify the place page manually.

Do what David says and keep up the good rankings!

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Local Search Ranking Factors – 2011!

In a recent blog, Google made an announcement, that with the use of Rich Snippets, web pages with a reference to a particular place, are more likely to get displayed in the search results, when a user makes a search query on that specific location.

Google says, “The Internet is teeming with useful information about local places and points of interest, and we do our best to deliver relevant search results that help shed light on locations all across the globe.”

The Rich Snippets help Google users to find those web pages that may be referencing to a specific place or location. Hence, by using structured HTML formats such as hCard, to markup an organization or business described on a page, websites can assist Google to properly classify a site, recognize and understand that its content is about a definite place, and thus making it available to users on Place pages.

Google points that, a search result snippet with more information helps users to decide whether a page is relevant to their search or not. Further it says, by using rich snippets, sites such as review sites or business listings, that contain structured content can label their content aptly. This will make it distinctly clear that, each labeled piece of text represents a certain type of data.

However, by providing this information, there is no impact on the representation of the content on the web pages, but it certainly helps Google to understand and present information from a web page in a better way. Right now, Google only supports the following information types – people profiles, reviews, business listings, and events.

“Though this markup does not guarantee that your site will be shown in search results, we’re excited to expand support for making the web better organized around real world places” said Google.

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Rich Snippets Can Influence Local Search Listings

The much applauded Local Search Ranking Factors is out with a second version. The well compiled guide published by many local SEO experts are based on survey results. The survey included polling 27 local SEO experts on 49 factors. These factors are those key points which will help in local search ranking. With respect to the influence of the 49 factors on Google and Yahoo Local search algorithm participants were asked to rate its importance. As follows

The results were interesting but not surprising as it were considered in the previous version as well.

Important observations include

• Having business in the local location which is being searched helps
• Providing links in the local search algorithm has lost its importance
• Citations from major data providers, blogs or other business in the areas are becoming more important.
• The quality of links is considered more important than quantity.
• Importance of user reviews are imperative, be it negative or positive , it helps in better listing

These ratings and guidelines will provide better local search algorithm comprehension for SEOs. It will help them to improvise their tools for better business results.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Local Search Ranking-2 Published

It is very common for a business location to have multiple business listings in Google Maps. These records are provided by Google's many data providers, readers who create new records without checking existing records from the Local Business Center leads to confusion. Since, a wrong click could remove the business from Maps completely.

At times, you may think that you're removing duplicate records but actually you might be suspending all of your records. The process is a bit complicated that Google has had trouble describing the process of duplicate record removal.

Therefore, Google has now come out with an authoritative description of the duplicate removal process:

“Disclaimer: Before you get started, it’s important to remember that a listing contains information merged from multiple sources. Suspending a duplicate listing could cause the original listing to be removed from Maps, because all sources of information for both the original and the duplicate might be suppressed.

1. Choose the listing that you’d prefer to keep in your account. Make sure that you have all your enhanced content (photos, business hours, description) attached to this listing and this listing only.
2. For duplicates of this listing in your account (the ones you want to remove), remove all enhanced information. Keep only required information, like the business title, address, and onephone number.
3. Submit these changes and verify as necessary.
4. Now, sit tight for a couple of weeks – just for good measure.
5. Delete the duplicates from your account, choosing Remove this listing from my Local Business Center account.

That’s it! Now you should only have one entry to control the details of your business listing. Be patient with updating certain kinds of information, like pictures — they should eventually appear in Maps.”

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Google Maps Publishes an Authoritative Description on Duplicate Records Removal Process

Google recently created a comprehensive user guide for its local business center.

This user guide has seven major sections:

1. Getting started
2. Adding a listing
3. Adding more than 10 listings
4. Verifying a listing
5. Your Local Business Center homepage
6. Editing or removing a listing
7. Other features

Here's an introductory video of the user guide.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Google Launches Local Business Center User Guide

Loads of business owners are frustrated these days. Reason being that their businesses in Google Maps are labeled as closed, while they are still working in a perfect manner!

One webmaster at the Google webmaster forum states that:

The search result from Google shows our office as closed (the exact phrase shown is "place closed")
Can someone please point me how I can get this corrected? Our office is not closed.

For unclaimed listings, which are open to community edits: Please select Edit below the address and choose Restore Place.”

Try these options!

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Resolve the Problem of "Placed Closed" Label in Google Maps

Well, you read it right. Now there is a tool that will help your small business get better rankings in search engines. And it's free! Just sign in at GetListed.org. and do the needful!

Recently we talked about the launch of this tool. The two famous names attached with this tool are Patrick Sexton and David Mihm. They have taken the utter responsibility of boosting small businesses in local search engines via this tool.

"We got out to a lot of real small business people already so we are happy."

"There was a lot of small businesses getting screwed by services that cost way too much," added Sexton.

It's really a nice tool. Worth trying once!

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

Want Better Local Business Rankings? GetListed.org

Want to see how your business list on local search engines as quickly as possible? Then head your way towards this new tool by Patrick Sexton and David Mihm now!

This is what they said on the launch : “As our Mission Statement says, our goal is "to help small businesses claim and enhance their listings at major search engines." GetListed.org currently focuses on businesses based in the United States only, but an international version of the site is in development.”

How To Start? Follow these simple steps:

• Enter your business name and zip code.
• Now leave everything to GetListed.org. It will poll Google, Yahoo, Live and other local engines to know about your listings!

For example:

For a better overview:

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Post from: PageTraffic SEO Blog Now updated thrice a day!

GetListed.org- Nice Tool for Local Search Marketers!

Well, if you run a local online business, then you need to have a fair knowledge about the meta tags at some point or the other. For those who are completely clueless about this term, here is the explanation for meta tags (that play a very important role in SEO business): “Meta tags are HTML codes that are fitted into the header on a web page, after the title tag and give the visitor the extra information about the website he will be visiting.” Some people say that Meta tags hold no significance as search engines don't give them much importance. They are right but not completely. To conclude this debate, let us know some important facts about meta tags:

• What is the importance of geographical data in meta tags. Again depending on different perceptions, some SEO experts think that one should include geographical data in the Meta tags of the page in case they want to aim their search efforts from the local area. (For example Keyword: 'Delhi' for a Delhi based business, and so on.)
• But some think that including geographical data in meta tags can create adverse effects for those who want to operate a local business and at the same time expand it to a national or global level. (Including geographical data would limit their search efforts to a particular region)
• For some, the vast appeal of the Internet is the perfect opportunity to expand their local business at a worldwide platform (Then why include a particular geographical data and confine their business)
• One more thing:- You all must know that when it comes to local business marketing, these Meta tags hold no prominence in search engine rankings in todays' web world. Now the web spiders place much less attention on these tags.
• But.. But.. But..

These Meta tags still play a very vital role to be up to date with the latest SEO techniques in an effort to ascend your local business online. Add proper Meta Keywords to your site as they help you in finding the right audience and generate quality traffic to the website.

Last, but definitely not the least: We all know that 'Content is the King,' infact it is the queen, ace and everything. If you fail to produce quality content for your website, no SEO strategy can save your website from getting run out at duck! If your content is worthy, then you will definitely get incoming links to your site.

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Geographical Data In Meta Tags for Your Local Business?