Google Places Integrated into Google+ Local Pages
June 15, 2012
By Raju Shanbhag, TMCnet Contributor
Today, Google (News - Alert) Places is quickly replacing the local business center, as numerous users access Google every day to find places in the real world. The company once stated it was looking to better connect Place Page, the way that companies are being found today.
Google Local, however, was a tool allowing company owners to manage their presence on Google.,
The company converted 80 million Google Places pages all over the world into Google+ Local pages. This has forced many companies depending on this Google Pages services to learn the new change to keep their business competitive in the virtual world.
Google+ trainers Yifat Cohen and Maya Mendoza have announced new G+ and Google+ Local courses to teach company owners what they should know and do to create leads and increase profits. They claim that for business owners who already use Google Places and understand its salient features, the combination with Google+ Business Pages is a reason to celebrate.
“This is Google's move to ramp up social integration,” said Maya Mendoza, Social SEO trainer and founder of Milagro Fusion Marketing. “Fundamentally Google+ Local Pages for business are an evolution of Places pages with a more powerful and comprehensive system for customer and client reviews. The main concern Google business users have expressed is that the changes came with no apparent warning.”
TMC’s (News - Alert) Colleen Lynch recently reported that the company changed its Google+ social network to revive its new local search feature in terms of popularity and usage. Its plan was to add Zagat restaurant reviews to make Google’s local search a competitive choice against services like Yelp (News - Alert), which offer similar information. The new tab labeled “Local” can be found on Google+, and allows users to search for specific places based on their current location, or to browse for nearby businesses and services.
Edited by Braden Becker