Questions re New Places Dashboard Descriptions

[rossicone]

Re: Major Update - New Google Places Dashboard - All-in-one Local Listing Management

Hello all!

In the new Google Places Dashboard, we can add links and rich text. It also appears that there isn't a character limit anymore?

I was curious if anyone had any insight on optimizing a listings description? Does Google want it to be around a certain length? Do you get penalized for including too many links in your description? If so, do we know what the magic number of links we should be targeting in it?

With more freedom, it seems like there will be more ways to optimize the description as well as more reasons to get penalized. For example, no character limit makes it easier for a business to keyword stuff. Will Google be on the lookout for this when they review our edits before publishing live? (keyword stuffing is just one example) Also, does Google still not want us to include the city of the business in the description?

It seems like you could optimize your listings' description like how you would write your website. However I'm not sure if there are certain rules about what to put in there/not to include that I am unaware of.

Thanks for your help!!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Rachel,

These are some excellent questions. You have touched on some great points and I think this will become an important post.

I don't have much personal experience with the new dashboard as of yet so I'm eager to hear what everyone thinks.

Thanks for this

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Rachel,

Your questions were too good to be buried on page 3 of the original announcement, so Colan suggested we split off into new thread and I agreed. Here we can focus on the questions at hand without being buried in with all the other issues in that thread.

I'm actually trying to make time to get back into my test account dashboard to play around more and check things out, since right after the announcement I was distracted trying to leave town, etc.

I don't have an answer or have time to answer right this sec, but hope others will pop in with opinions.

 

[JoshuaMackens]

While I was looking up an example G+L page done by Mike Blumenthal for one of his actual clients with all of the goodies you're talking about, I've found he took them all out. Not sure why. But he did have one link, with optimized anchor text in the description pointing to the client's site. Why he dropped, I can only guess.

 

[rossicone]

Hi Joshua,

Thanks for your input! I wonder if this was a strategic move by Mike to remove all links but one, or if he is testing things out.

I only have one client that has transferred over to the new Google Places dashboard. This makes it hard to test and compare what works and what doesn't.

I'm excited to learn what is working well for others and try it out myself. Can't wait to hear everyone's input on the matter!

Thanks,
Rachel

 

[JoshuaMackens]

Sentiment echoed