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New Google Places Layouts w/ Gray Map Pins: Face-lift or Botox Shot?

October 29, 2011 12 Comments

 

Google has once again tested VERY different layouts for the Google Places local results.

This particular test lasted a few hours in the wee hours today (October 29) but features several elements that having been popping up in Google’s tests recently.

It included a new look for the “7-pack” Google Places results…

New Google Places 7-pack: larger & with gray map pins

…and for the “blended” local results:

New "blended" local search results layout

Most notably, it’s the second short test of the new map layout that I reported on recently, and it contains the gray map markers that Jo from LollipopLocal and Nyagoslav from OptiLocal noticed (mainly in Europe) last week.

I didn’t notice any reshuffling of the rankings, nor anything to indicate an algorithm change; the test layout is pretty much just a facelift.

Or…is it just a Botox injection into the ever-changing face of Google Places?  Both new layouts are far less colorful—no red map markers or photos—even though they hog more above-the-fold space than before.

Google has now tested both the different map layout and the gray map pins twice in the span of a couple weeks.  My guess is that in the very near future Google will stop messing around and will actually roll out a new Google Places layout.

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Filed Under: Adapting to Google's Changes, Announcements, New Stuff in Google Places Tagged With: , ,

Google Places Scavenger Hunt: Find Me a Blended Review

October 12, 2011 9 Comments

The Google Places Scavenger HuntWhat’s a “blended review”?  It’s where a customer writes a review of a business and uploads photos to that business’s Google Places page—which results in the review and pictures being “blended” in the review area.

I discovered “blended reviews” last week.  Here’s the LONE example I’ve been able to find so far—for Mike’s Pastry in Boston (my all-time favorite):

Challenge: find a "blended review" in Google Places

I want to learn more about these “blended reviews”—who has them, the kind of customers who leave them, how they’re ranked within the Google Places review area, etc.

Trouble is, I just burned out  my eyeballs by spending way too long looking for another example of one.  I came up dry, and will probably need to go buy a pair of Coke-bottle glasses after this.

That’s why I’m offering you a bounty.  If YOU can send me a link to a business in Google Places that has at least one “blended review” (as described above), I’ll give you a free Google Places review handout or a “Best Ever” review handout.

Two caveats: (1) you can’t simply send me a link to your Places page (where it’s easy enough to get a non-customer to upload a review and photos), and (2) you can’t send me a link to a business that you reviewed and uploaded photos of.

In other words, it’s got to be a “blended review” that occurs in the wild—like of a business you’ve been to or stumbled across in Google Places.

Bonus: if you can find me a naturally occurring blended review that is NOT for a hotel, tourist attraction, restaurant, or any place that sells food or drink, I’ll give you a free Google Places review handout AND a handout for getting “Best Ever” Google reviews.  What I’d love to find is a business in a service industry (landscaping, roofing, plumbing, etc.) or a profession (doctor, lawyer, etc.) that has a blended review.

Up to the task?  In the words of Cosmo Kramer…giddy up!

Special thanks to Linda Buquet and Nyagoslav Zhekov, who clued me in to the extreme scarcity of blended reviews.

–Update (10/14)–

We’ve actually found a few more examples of blended reviews.  Eric Marshall of ZCreative.com found this one.

I also found a couple of others (by the same user who did the blended review for Mike’s Pastry) here and here.

Notice that the blended reviews consistently rise to the top of the list of Google reviews.  Sure, obviously Google considers them relevant reviews, because of all the bold keyphrases/sentiment fragments in the actual text of the reviews.  And yes, Google does tend to put the more recent reviews at the top of the heap.

But based on even this little “core sample,” it’s pretty clear so far that Google gives blended reviews a spotlight.  They’re inherently super-prominent just because they contain pictures—and Google is making blended reviews doubly prominent by featuring them at the top of the customer-review area.

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Filed Under: Adapting to Google's Changes, Announcements, Attracting Customers - the Human Element, New Stuff in Google Places Tagged With: , ,

New XL Google Places Pins under “Maps” Tab

September 7, 2011 Leave a Comment

New: extra-large map pins for businesses in Google PlacesToday I noticed a neat new feature in Google Places: extra-large pins for each business when you hover over that business in the “Maps” tab.

You can see what I mean right now:

1.  Type in a local-search term.  Let’s say “pizza.”

2.  Click on the “Maps” tab.

3.  Hover your mouse over any one of the local businesses on the LEFT, and keep an eye on the big map to the right; you’ll notice that business’s map pin double in size.

You’ll see a big map pin if you hover over the business info on the left for any local business ranked #1-10 under the “Maps” tab.  But you won’t see the XL map pin if you hover over any Adwords or Adwords Express results, or if you’re looking at the Places results on the 1st page of Google.  Right now, the big map pins only show up if (1) you’re in the Maps tab and if (2) you’re hovering over the Google Places results on the left.

Hover over local search result on left, see XL map pin on right

XL map pin for any Google Places business result under Maps tab

There’s a chance Google is only testing this temporarily and the XL pins will be gone soon (though this is unlikely).  Given that Google Places has been changing a lot recently, maybe the next round of changes will explain why we now have extra-large Google Places map pins.

My guess is that Google has added the plus-sized pins in order to get more people to use the giant map that’s on the right-hand side in the Maps view.  When you hover over a Google Places business result on the left and the big pin jumps out at you on the right, your eyes are going to where the movement is.

If Google can make the big map on the right a more integral part of the “user experience,” that sets the stage for adding more bells & whistles to the big map area in the future.  I wouldn’t be surprised if pretty soon we start seeing more stuff in Google Places in the big map area under “Maps.”

Those are my two cents; how ’bout yours?  Leave a comment!

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Filed Under: Adapting to Google's Changes, Announcements, Local Search Show-and-Tell, New Stuff in Google Places Tagged With: , ,

Google Places Descriptions Are Back, Baby

August 18, 2011 6 Comments

I know I sound like George Costanza when I say that, but I’m excited to announce the return of the Places “Descriptions” that went missing from everybody’s Places page a few weeks ago.

Here are a few of my clients whose Descriptions are back in all their glory.  After all this time, I assume you’d have to see it to believe it:

(Click on any picture to enlarge)

Sheridan Eye Care - Davie, FL

Palumbo Landscaping - Forest Lake, MN

The Ice Dam Removal Guys - Minneapolis, MN

Stone Masters, Inc. - Kennett Square, PA

Mountain Lumber Company - Boone, NC

Physical Addiction Fitness Centre - Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

My clients are awesome, so the reappearance of their Descriptions is particularly deserved :) , but I’ve seen a few others reappear as well.

The only way in which the Descriptions are not totally “back” is that there seems to be a processing delay on Google’s end when you try to update one.  Some of my newest clients’ Descriptions aren’t showing up on their Places pages just yet.  Linda Buquet has reported that there’s a 6-10 week delay in updates (ouch) on Google’s end.  This appears to be right on the money.

What kind of shape is your Google Places “Description” in at this point?  Make my day and leave me a comment!

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Filed Under: Adapting to Google's Changes, Announcements, Local Search Show-and-Tell, New Stuff in Google Places Tagged With: ,

Google Places Disappearing Details

July 22, 2011 4 Comments

I thought I’d noticed all the changes to the Google Places layout yesterday, when Google rolled out the changes.  But I didn’t.

Susan Walsh of elsue.com has kindly pointed out to me that the “Additional Details” area is missing from all Google Places listings.  I thought something else seemed different…

This is a shame, because the “Details” section has always been a great way for businesses to tell customers facts about their business that maybe.  Maybe 2% of businesses abused this by “keyword-stuffing,” but I’d say about 98% of businesses didn’t fill it with junk (or didn’t use it at all).

But it will be interesting to see what—if anything—Google replaces the “Details” area with.  Businesses need a way to convey the odd-ball stuff to potential customers.

UPDATE:  The odd thing is that I’m still seeing the Details fields intact when signed into the “Edit” area of a Google Places listing.  Maybe these are on the way out, too…

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Filed Under: Announcements, New Stuff in Google Places Tagged With: ,

Google Places Review Change: Test or Takeover?

July 21, 2011 5 Comments

If you’ve looked up any business in Google Places today, you’d have noticed two BIG changes to the layout.

One change screams at users to write a review through their Google account—and not through a third-party site like Yelp or InsiderPages.  The other change makes the reviews customers have written you through these other sites far less visible on your Google Places page.

Some more detail:

Change 1: Big Red Google Review Buttons

BIG buttons for customers to write reviews w/ their Google account s

Both of these buttons were there on the Places page before, but they were far less visible—appearing as small text links rather than as big, visible buttons.

It’s always been a little tricky for customers to write a review of a business through their Google accounts—especially if a business owner asks them to write a review but they don’t have a Google account set up yet and have to take the necessary detour to sign up for one.

For some time Google has been trying to get more of its users to write reviews.  It’s all part of an effort on Google’s part to make the Places Page “one-stop shopping” for customers to learn about local businesses—so that they don’t spend as much time reading reviews on other sites.  This is a step in the direction of making Google Places more self-contained, and not reliant on reviews written elsewhere.

 

Change 2: No More Review Excerpts from non-Google Sites

Gone are the review excerpts from other sites.  They don’t show up on your Places page any more.

Until today, you could have a total of 8 review excerpts showing up on your Google Places page: a maximum of 2 excerpts written by customers with Google accounts, and another 6 excerpts from reviews written on sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, etc.

Now your Google Places page can have a maximum of only TWO excerpts of reviews written by Google users:

New: no reviews excerpts from third-party review sites

Also, until today, all of your reviews would show up next to the little “average review stars.”  That is, if you had a bunch of reviews written by Google users and a bunch of reviews that customers wrote through other sites, all your reviews would show up as one grand-total number–one big happy family:

The other day, if you looked at the Circus Circus casino in the local search results, you’d see that it has over 47,000 (!) reviews, written by its patrons on all kinds of third-party sites.  Now all you see from the outside is “143 reviews”—the total number of reviews that Circus Circus patrons have written through their Google accounts:

New: total review numbers no longer include non-Google reviews

So Google is showcasing reviews written by Google users, and is paying far less attention to reviews written on sites like Yelp, CitySearch, and many others.

All this could be another one of Google’s tests.  But if these changes are at least semi-permanent, they represent the latest step in Google’s effort to make itself the “one-stop shop” for information about local businesses—including the customer reviews that used to be the domain of other, non-Google sites.

—

By the way, I just noticed that Mike Blumenthal and Chris Piepho noticed this change a couple of hours ago.  Credit to those guys for putting some great thoughts on paper regarding these changes.

I could blab on and on about the implications of this change–and I probably will in a subsequent post!—but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this change.

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Filed Under: Announcements, Local Search Show-and-Tell, New Stuff in Google Places Tagged With: , ,

More great info on local visibility – on the way

June 1, 2011 Leave a Comment

If you’re reading this, you’ve found my blog at just the right time–when I’ve written nothing on it, and all the good stuff is yet to come.

It’s part of a completely new layout for LocalVisibilitySystem.com. As before, my mission is to provide info that helps you get your business visible to local customers in Google Places.

I realize my blog area is kind of bare for the immediate time being, but you can still get some great info right now by downloading my free 7-step guide to local visibility.  That alone should be enough to get you more visible to customers.

Other than that, I’d love it if you’d contact me with whatever questions you have. I’m going to get an RSS feed up here ASAP, but in the meantime, do check back from time to time, if you have a business that you’d like to get visible.

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Filed Under: Announcements