Common Myths About Google Places by Mary Bowling

[Linda Buquet]

Mary Bowling just shared a great post over at the Sixth Man Marketing blog.

Common Myths About Google Places

Myth #1: A business owns its Google Places listing.

Google Places owns all the business listings it publishes. Adapting to this fact may be difficult for some small business owners, because they are accustomed to having complete control over their listings in other directories, especially in the print yellow pages. Businesses pay dearly for print ads in phone directories, and thus have control of their content. A Google Places listing is free, but the business owner has little control over it.

What do you think?
Have any other Google Places myths you want to shatter?

 

[Bishop]

I was wondering about #4, "You don?t need a website to prosper in Local Search."
So your website DOES influence your google places ranking?
[h=2][/h]

 

[Linda Buquet]

Myth #3: You don’t need a website to prosper in Local Search.

She's not saying you don't need a site. She's saying that's the "myth" then she refutes it below.
With the old Places algo people used to say that moreso because it was a pure local listing that ranked.

 

[Bishop]

Oh, sorry, it was #3!!
So a good optimized site helps your google places rank?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Oh yes, sorry thought you knew.

Since the blended algo started the top of the pack - usually the top 3 or so rank mainly due to organic SEO factors.

Here is a post I did about it: How the Google Local Algo Really Works - What Rules the Ranking Order

The algo changed recently and some experts say the results are mainly the local algo. But to me the top listings still appear to be ruled primarily by organic factors.

 

[Margaret Ornsby]

Err...Yes. That's why Linda has both the Places course and the local SEO course.

---------- Post Merged at 04:54 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 04:52 PM ----------

Hah! Linda, delete my last post. You and I replied at exactly the same time! LOL!

 

[Bishop]

Thank you Linda!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!