Google’s ‘Local Business Results’ is Changing
Like it or not, Google Local Business Results is making way for the new “Place Page” and from what I can see there is one change in particular that could make all the difference for websites that hold a local business result listing.
Searchers are now directed to your listing on Google Maps, NOT to your website. This additional click is another ‘action’ in the user journey and so will probably reduce website visits from natural search for local searches.
*Update – These are standard Web searches (not MAP/Directions searches)
This also means your place page becomes your new landing page for local searches and as such that landing page needs attention.
How does this change improve the user experience of Google?
I can’t see how it does. It doesn’t make sense to send searchers to a Place Page when there is a website present with all the information already in place.
So why has Google introduced this change?
To make money of course! There is a way of bypassing the Place Page and sending the user directly to your website by paying for a sponsored link.
Google descibes these sponsored links as ‘tags’:
A new, simple way to advertise: For just $25 per month, businesses in select cities can make their listings stand out on Google.com and Google Maps with Tags. As of today, we’re rolling out Tags to three new cities — Austin, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. — in addition to ongoing availability in Houston and San Jose, CA. In the coming weeks we’ll also be introducing Tags in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco.
See:
- Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Places
- Googles New Local UI by David Mihm – Includes image of a place page result from the US with a sponsored link (tag)
Can’t see Place Page results in your local search?
I observed that the results changed between the Google local business results and Place Page results depending on whether I searched a city or a smaller borough or town.
These searches gave me the local business results we are used to:
- Garden Decking Manchester
- Decorating Manchester
These searches gave me Place Page results
- Garden Decking Tameside
- Garden Decking Dukinfield
- Decorating Tameside
Tameside is a borough within Greater Manchester. Dukinfield is a town within Tameside. It appears that Place Page results are appearing initially for searches on smaller areas and certain service types. I tried the searches in Manchester, Tameside and Dukinfield for “SEO”, “Builders” and “Accountants”, these either gave me only local business results or no local results at all (never a place page result). It’s likely only a matter of time before all local searches product Place Page results.
My advice now is to make sure you have claimed your Google Place Page.
Add as much information as possible that describes exactly what you do. Add your website link, add your logo/CTA banner, add photos, make sure your location pin is accurate, add your opening hours and information about your products and services.
Also keep an eye on the reviews which can be added freely by other Google users.
Whether you decide to pay for that sponsored link that bypasses your google listing and goes straight to your website will depend on how much you rely on that local listing you currently hold!
Google always seems to roll out it’s changes over in the US before we start to see them in the UK SERPs. Have a gander at these:
- Mike Blumenthal’s Google SERPS Now Showing New OneBox
- David Mihm’s Google’s New Local UI Proving Conspiracy Theorists Right
- Tim Peter’s Should you abandon your website and just get a Google Place Page instead? (Tim says no).
- Matt McGee’s post at SearchEngineLand: Google Recommends The Competition On Your Business Place Page
- Graywolf aka Michael Gray’s thought’s: Is Google Stealing Your Content and Hijacking Your Traffic
Great blog post Kay. I did start noticing that when I search for my own business listing with a very specific location. This would initiate 2 clicks to the website which could eventually reduce clicks to the website and improve clicks to Google local listing page.
Rather than “to make money” (or probably as well as to make money), surely it is because if someone is looking for somewhere on a map, then they are likely to be looking for directions and so the further details map page is more usable/relevant to the map results than the website is.
It would be like the video results pointing to the homepage of the website which embeds the video, rather than the YouTube URL where the video exists online.
Google’s theory is possibly that the organic listing should provide the most relevant web site, so if the map is providing a less relevant site, then there should not be a link here to make it seem more relevant than the URLs in the organic listings.
I think they are right to do this, as I do often see SEOd sites being linked to a fake address in order to do well in an area.
Thanks for your comments Peter
These are WEB searches, not MAP searches (perhaps my original post was unclear on that point so I added an update
)
If someone searches for a product or service they are looking for that product or service.
If someone is looking for directions they would be searching an addresss or searching from maps directly.
The results that appeared for ‘place pages’ that I saw WERE relevant.
If Google is showing a map result of a site that is less relevant than the ‘organic’ results below, it shouldn’t appear in WEB search at all.
This doesn’t solve that problem. Those ‘fake’ listings are still getting a listing. You don’t need a fake address you just need ‘an address’ (e.g. PO Box number) and different mobile number to verify the listing. The new place page listing still allows a direct link but it requires that the listing owner PAYS for it. This will make the local results sponsored, not organic.
RE: Map searches – I assume the main reason Google add these into the man listings (together with video and froogle) is to advertise that they also provide these services, which are what make it stand out from many rival search engines.
I think the first result in the organic listing is supposed to be the most relevant website, whereas the map result is aiming at being the most local. It’s result matches what happens if you do a map search, so it is using the same process (so I would call it a map result).
I personally think they are wrong to add this to the top of the page, and would be better to add it to the top result if they also have a map entry for that website.
I may be wrong here (or misreading you) – but isn’t the place page free, and it’s the sponsored link in the place page section which is being paid for? Google are usually pretty good at saying when something is sponsored, and the examples you gave (”Garden Decking Tameside”) does not have this link. As far as I can tell, a different website could actually place a link here, as is shown on the blog article you link to.
At the end of the day, Google is a business, and that seems a sensible practise, as opposed to letting people buy a “place page” link which appears to be natural but is not.
hey peter, yes place page is still free (at the moment), the direct link is sponsored (clearly labelled), which can be seen in the other blogs I linked to from over the pond.
I think local business results in the web SERPs is a good thing. Certainly when someone is searching specifically FOR a business within a geographic location and when a business without a website might be more relevant than a business that does have one. It’s the sponsored element that makes me wary. Until it’s rolled out properly we can’t be sure what we are going to end up with or indeed if businesses that pay will get preferential treatment/increased visibility.
For now, and certainly while it’s free (I like free!) I just think it would be wise for any business (with a website or not) to take a bit more notice of Google Places and ensure their place page has as much info as possible, which really was the reason for the post. I suspect there are many website-less SME’s that aren’t even aware that they have a place page.