Google has launched another search, this time Places Search, which is not to be confused with Local Search or Instant Search. Places search is similar to instant search in that they predict what you are searching for and provide results through Places Search when it is identified that you are seeking a place. Confused? Yeah, me too until I went in and performed some searches and found that it was very useful as a consumer.
Google Places Search
Google Places Search takes local search to a new level. As a small business, optimizing for local search allowed your target and local area to find you easily and conveniently. It erased the struggles of battling with big brands and brought you to your local market, providing you did claim your listing in the search engine local business centers. The search results in Google Places Search is shown with each result being marked with a red pin and provides links that are relevant to that business. The links include reviews from such sites as yelp.com, citysearch.com, etc. The results appear from a regular google search which increases the importance of a complete and informative profile as well as the user reviews. We can see here how monitoring and addressing social mentions is a necessity and not an afterthought.
How Google Places Works
Google Places Search as mentioned above works withing a regular Google search. I have not turned off Google Instant (despite becoming frustrated at times when I receive a search result that is not what I bargained for) so when performing searches I was using Google Instant. When searching for restaurants the results immediately were places that they believed I was searching for with the red pins to show me the locations. I performed quite a few searches however the one that stands out the most was “Pizza” (as an Italian, I love my pizza and lots of it). The results were not what I expected (note, I was signed into my Google account which has my specific location in Las Vegas).
It then took the advice of Google Instant and clicked on Pizza Las Vegas and the results were almost more remarkable:
Metro Pizza and Grimaldi’s are local pizza palors however we see nationwide chains dominating the search results. Big brand dominating the local places search is very telling. Sure, the local pizza palors may need to optimize better but when you see the map below, they are showing up and little red dots but not big red pins:g
Is Local Search Optimization Effective?
Yes, it is, however, data presented here would dictate that for the non-chain pizza palor it is not. This could mean that the smaller shops need to do their homework but it could also mean that the bigger brands will always prevail? Without the inbound links could the smaller shops compete in what is to be a local search?
Have you used Google Places Search? What have you found, especially for the small businesses? Would love to hear what different cities are experiencing!
Google Lego photo credit: Gayle Laakmann McDowell
