What’s happening to Google Places for Business?
With over 40% of all searches having a local element and one million New Zealanders searching for local information every day a Google Places, Google Places fgor Business, or Google+ Local listing is essential for any business operating locally.
Creating, publishing and maintaining such a listing can however be problematic and we are happy to be able to assist clients in this area.
Google have recently upgraded the Google Places for Business dashboard, "giving business owners an updated interface, more ease in updating their business information, and updates on the status of their edits", says Google.
What’s new in the Places dashboard?
- An updated interface that makes editing your information easier
- Listing and per-field updates that show the status of your business information on Maps
- Insights to help you track your business’s performance on Google
What's different?
- You can now upload more photos and you can write longer descriptions for your business
- If Google Maps has different information than what you've input in your Places dashboard, your new dashboard will now be updated with the Maps information. Things that might be different include your address, website or categories
- Google no longer supports custom categories
- The payment options and additional fields no longer appear and the data will not be transferred in your upgrade to the new dashboard
- The videos field no longer appears in the dashboard but you can access previously uploaded videos through your YouTube account. If you wish to post videos on the listing for your business, upgrade to a Google+ Local page
- Updates or Posts to customers are not currently possible through the Places dashboard. To Post to your customers, upgrade to Google+ Local
Who can use the new Places dashboard?
Google are migrating people users to the new Dashboard in stages. you will know when you have been upgraded as access to the old Places dashboard will no longer be possible.
