Reviews on Google Places: Now You, the Owner, Can Respond

Google Places business listings intends to be number one among all business listing tools on the web.  They have the right location to accomplish this.  The only thing left to do is provide such a robust environment for both owners and their customers that both will spend time, energy, and money here rather than at Yellowpages, Yelp, Yahoo, or other competitors in the online local search engine and directory world.

According to conversations I've had with managers at Yelp and CitySearch, and according to many articles on the subject by various pundits, the real competition is in the reviews.  And online business reviews are real trouble.  Flames from competitors, unreasonable expectations from consumers, and a propensity to complain and ask questions later, has resulted in lost business for otherwise excellent businesses.

Yelp has been at the center of the controversy, including various lawsuits on the subject.  They started offering owner responses several months ago.  Now Google is following that lead, and in a way that is very unGoogle-like.  They have given rules, recommendations, and even examples of do's and dont's for handling the responses.  And at least at first blush, they have made the process simple.  Could this be a forerunner of better customer care by Google in the future, or just a recognition that anything less might create lawsuits for Google?

In order to make a response to a review on Google Places, you must have claimed your listing.  Amazing, but true, there a millions of businesses who have not yet claimed their listings.  Once you have claimed your listing, you will see the reviews section on the Place Page.  There you will also see "Respond publicly as the owner."  Merely click here, make your response and click publish.
Google has posted rules for the review and response section as follows:
    •    Don't spam or post fake reviews intended to boost or lower ratings.
    •    Don't post or link to content that is sexually explicit or contains profanity.
    •    Don't post or link to content that is abusive or hateful or threatens or harasses others.
    •    Don't post or or link to any file that contains viruses, corrupted files, "Trojan Horses," or any other contaminating or destructive features that may damage someone else's computer.
    •    Don't post any material that violates the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of others.
    •    Don't impersonate any person, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.
    •    Don't violate any other applicable law or regulation.
    •    Don't use comments as a forum for advertisement.
And google has posted their thoughts and ideas on what to say or not say when you post a response.

These are very common sense ideas.  You can see their suggestions here.

My thoughts are these.  Acknowledge and validate their feelings and concerns while not necessarily agreeing with their facts.  If you do agree with their facts, make it clear that you would welcome a chance to make it right.  If you don't acknowledge their facts, make your own clear statement of your position with a very "nice" tone.  In many cases, even if they don't have a leg to stand on, you can create great future goodwill with them and others by graciously offering to meet them somewhere in the middle.

Be sure to provide a response to every issue.  Sometimes a good review might contain a slightly negative element.  Profusely thank the person for their good review and use the guidelines above to respond to the negative part.

By far the best response to negative reviews is lots and lots of postiive ones.  Explore ways to generate positive reviews and make it a part of company policy to encourage such reviews.  http://www.ShoutDog.com is one online company offering some methods for getting more reviews.

Google Places: Alert! Add Links to Google Places Listings

I started seeing information about this recently after we reported that Google Places would allow links to a restaurant menu or a hotel reservation desk. Some then started to wonder whether this would expand.  Apparently, expansion wasn't necessary.  However, we can see that Google is the monster version of Mario Bros, and we need to somehow figure this stuff out for ourselves.  Thus, put any link you desire.  Suggested links would be anything and everything except your website (which is already linked in the main body of the listing).  However, listing internal pages in your website that you would like to point out directly would be a great approach.

So blogs, Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter, MySpace (who?), and Meetup pages are all be examples of pages outside your website you could link.  As far as the inside is concerned, I would consider pointing out specific products, brands, services, specials, biographies of leadership.  The list goes on and on.

To add these links, merely access your Places listing by going to your Google Account.  Next, hit the edit link button.  At the bottom of the form you will see the Additional Details Section.  Add the link just as I have done for Montrose Bike's Blog.

Google Places - Numerous Professionals with One Street Address Can Have Multiple Places Listings

Freshly picked from a new Blumenthal blog on Understanding Google Maps and Local Search

In an interview with Google

I decided however, to get Google’s “official” opinion on the matter so I asked Ari Bezman, Google’s product manager for the Local Business CenterGoogle Places as to how Google thought this situation should be handled.

MB: What is Google’s recommended practice in regards to handling the multiple listings that most professionals and clinics end up with?
Should we endeavor to have one listing for the practice Place and merge all of the doctors (or whatever) into the one listing or should a we endeavor to keep the individual doctor listings?
Ari: Each doctor (or other independent professional) should have their own listing, with one more listing for the clinic.
MB: A related question is that often the Doctor listings come into Google with a format of Dr Name: Speciality . Is that the preferred business name or is just the Dr. Name preferred?
Ari: The name should just be Dr. Name. The specialty should be in the category and/or the description.

 This was followed with a lively discussion on what this means.  Does this only apply to professionals?  Should it?  What happens to businesses with widely different product categories or services?  For the moment, we only have it from the horses mouth, professionals that operate out of a single business location can list themselves one at a time.  For the issue of naming each professional, I noted that Ari said "should be."  I doubt that's true.  I believe that the Doctor Could surely add a specialty, but I would stop at Dr. Jones Heart Surgeon unless I had a DBA for a longer name.

Google Places: "Owner Content Will Get Priority"

The new Google Places Help Forum is not yet at its full potential, but it's definitely improved.  A Google employee released that the company does buy information from other companies, including YellowPages.com.  Because they buy that information, there's an opportunity for competing information.  This competing information will even include the key elements such as your name, address, and phone number.

A client of mine doesn't like her picture that is included with her Places listing.  This picture was taken from CitySearch.  There's no telling how they got the photo, but you get the point.  The Google Places Rep said that they will go as far as to call a business to establish what information is correct when there is conflict.  I would love to receive news of that actually happening.

The key element to be taken from the forum post:  Information, pictures, and videos supplied by the owner will always be preferred to info coming from other sources, including the paid ones.  This is why there is so much importance that you claim your Google Places listing and keep it fresh.

Update - I am beginning to see situations where owner information is NOT showing up in listings, but citations from other resources are seemingly getting priority.  What are others seeing?  Please comment.

Google Places: The Yellow Pages of The Present and Future

Lest anyone think I dost protest too much, check out the following post.  Google has to the position, the product, and the power to be the king of local search.  Like the 2010 Lakers, it is there's to lose.

Is Google Becoming the New Ma Bell?

By Gregg Stewart, ClickZ, May 6, 2010

Sponsored by Microsoft Mobile Advertising

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First off, some younger readers might not get the comparison. The colloquial term Ma Bell ("Mother Bell") was used to refer to the conglomerate that held a complete monopoly over all telephone service in most areas of the United States. In effect, they were the utility that brought communication to U.S. consumers and businesses. Fast forward about 100 years and we see a similar "utility" emerging in Google as it moves further to embed its product set and services in the minds of both consumers and businesses.

  

Nowhere is this pattern more evident than in the realm of local search. With over 65 percent marketshare of search (according to comScore) and nearly $12 billion in annualized revenue from U.S. search (according to Google's Q1 2010 Quarterly Earnings Summary); I think we can all agree that Google is a successful business. Interestingly though, all of this success has come from leveraging a relatively small base of advertisers, around 1 million U.S. advertisers (as of 2009). Considering there were over 29 million businesses in the U.S. in 2008 (according to SBA), it stands to reason that Google has an opportunity to dominate the local search marketplace.
Let's consider the facts; one in five searches on Google is now explicitly location-specific. Recently, Google has taken some steps to enhance the local-search process on its site as well as the local content itself. Most notably, these steps include:

• The revamp of the Local Business Center - now called Google Places
• Google Maps allowing service-based businesses to target service areas
• The enhanced localization of Google Suggest

Google Places: Prioritizing Your Keywords, City, and Zip Codes

Is it possible to have it all?  You can accomplish everything I suggest, and do it perfectly, but sadly you won't get every keyword in every city and zip code you care about on Places.  Right now I am working with a personal trainer in West Los Angeles who's business makes this case.

She would be thrilled to rank highly under Pilate Instructor, Pilate classes, Fitness, Exercise Classes, Nutrition, Personal Trainer, boot camp, weight loss consultant, personal fitness coach, and many more.  In addition, her West L.A. address would allow her to draw from 15 cities such as Santa Monica, Culver City, and El Segundo, as well as 10 Los Angeles "villages" like Westwood, Venice, and Marina Del Rey.  I wish there was a way to do all that.

Google Maps and other LSE's (Local Search Engines) are structured to give some sort of indexing based on how close they are to the city included in the search.  For example, if I'm searching for Personal Trainer Santa Monica, why would I want an El Segundo business to show up first if the two cities are 8 miles away?

Now lets say I'm the owner, and my business borders Santa Monica and Mar Vista. However, my business is really located in Mar Vista, a small village of Los Angeles and less noticeable than Santa Monica. I sure would like to show up on the MAP in Santa Monica.

Reality time, sadly, you are going to have to do some prioritizing.  In fact, you should really pick one key word and one city first.  Next, do you try to broaden your control under that keyword, or work harder to dominate several key words in your primary city?  Either way, the more cities you get or the more keywords you want, the harder it is to accomplish your tasks.  However, it is better to at least set clear goals.

If you want to expand your reach past the "natural" stretches of Google Places algorithm, there are tricks that you can count on never being published by me.  For these tricks, call me at 310-910-1848.

Optimizing Google Places- How To Get an A plus

Here we have great helpful information, as well as an outstanding visual from Mike Blumenthal's Blog.  Getting a 100% rating from Google is not critical when the time comes to rank your listing, but it can't hurt. And don't worry, it's not that hard.

If you prefer charts over well crafted visuals, here is one with exactly the same information.

Google Places Coming To the Rescue

Recently, Google Places has given us these statements: they will have more information, newsletters, better forums, and all types of aid coming to us.  You can call me the expert.  Send me all of your questions.  If I haven't already answered them somewhere in this blog, I may have the answer with me. Or with all this new help, I might be able to get an answer for you.