Google is a billion dollar corporation, and basically controls the flow of information on the internet. They have introduced brilliant ideas such as Google Goggles (if you haven’t seen this, I suggest you check it out!) the Android operating system for smart phones, and many many others!
The one aspect of this industry that I love is the ever involving nature of SEO and online marketing. The difficulty of this is the unknown. What is Google alpha testing? How will this affect my clients, and how can we take advantage of this?
An interesting blog post on Converseon.com shows Google maps taking over! A search was conducted of “car rentals nyc” and instead of the normal Google Maps listing in the top real estate of the page, Google Maps was the entire first page.
This looks to be a new results page that Google is testing, and normally it is quite some time between testing, launching, and rolling out to the world wide data centres. What this does show is the different strategies needed for you business to receive leads in the changing market place.
In this example, we can see that Google Maps is prominent, and highly valued by Google. It can also be seen that adwords are still very important, and prominent – as it always will be.
If this is rolling out, or even if the idea is up in the air, conformity is a must! With no organic search results on the first page, how are people going to buy your products or services if they can’t find you? Location based keywords? Get Google Maps, or potentially be left behind.
It has officially been announced that the Local Business Centre has been rebranded by Google Maps listings for local businesses as Google Places.
The change has been in effort by Google to better connect Google Place Pages with the place where local business information is claimed, entered and enhanced. The Place Pages currently allows business to provide valuable information to potential searchers such as operating hours, special business offers, photos, payment methods, pictures and reviews. Google Places will not significantly change, other than the name change, however various new features and emphasis on current features will be heavily pushed in effort to better connect customers with Google Places and Pages.
Google Places additional features:
‘Enhanced Listings’:
For $25(US)/per month to make a business listing ‘stand out’ a little more or highlight a certain feature such as a menu or video which you would like your customers to focus on. There are 7 enhancement categories which a business can choose, however at this stage, the focus is on one enhancement category at a time.
The categories include:
- Photos
- Videos
- Websites
- Coupons
- Directions
- Menu
- Reservations
Business Photos
Google are offering free photo shoots to businesses listed on Google Places with Place Pages, allowing pictures to be taken professionally within the business.
Favourite Places
The change to be listed as a ‘Favourite Place’ on Google Maps based upon a collection of celebrity favourite places such as places which inspire Al Gore, or Paris Hiltons favourite places to shop in Beverly Hills.
Customised QR Codes
Customised QR Codes
A QR Code is pretty much a bar code for mobile phones. These codes are different to each business and can be places on various marketing material, where customers can scan the code with their mobile (Smartphone) and can be directly taken to the mobile version of the business Place Page.
The change of name and push with additional features could be seen by Google to actively promote local businesses online and better connect consumers.
Google’s ever growing services just keep on rolling out. One of the latest features for Google Maps, currently in the testing pipeline will allow users to see prices of various hotels based on searched location. The announcement was made the other day on Google’s official LatLong Blog, saying they are currently testing this new feature with a small portion of users.
How will it work? When you search for hotels in certain areas on Google Maps, you will also be given the option to enter your intended dates of stay. Hotel listings will now appear with real prices based on various advertisers such as Expedia and Wotif and will further allow users to click through and reserve a room on the advertiser’s site
Currently hotels in Google Maps are listed and ranked according to their relevance to search terms, geographic distance and other factors such as information in the listing itself. According to Google however, this new feature will not change the way hotels are currently ranked, but I can’t help thing think the new pricing factor listing will play a significant part in what advertiser’s prices will show.
Google maps in Australia last year saw the introduction of icons and labels of particular businesses and places on interest. This is great for exploring and familiarising yourself with a city when you’re on holidays, want to check out the closest restaurants or just find cool places to check out. The old maps used to be like this.
Today Google has just launched an improvement on this feature by incorporating more businesses and shops that are represented by mini logos and allows their business to connect with a larger audience. Although it is another way that Google can make money out of this feature, the value it offers is branding and can definately be very useful if you own an ATM or trying to look for one.
Make sure that you have Google Maps and then that it optimised! For more information on how we can help you optimise those maps then contact us.
It has been some time since Google was last on the Australian roads (August last year) taking 360 degree imaging of our streets for use on the Google map street view feature. In this time many of the street view aspects have become very outdated and irrelevant so the cars are back in town to re-film many of Australia’s streets.
Apart from getting updated footage, the Google map vehicles will also be equipped with more advanced recording equipment this time. When this new footage is launched sometime within the next year we will have much clearer and detailed views of the surrounding objects for zooming. Some important items that this will enable us to see more clearly are house numbers and restaurant names.
Its fleet of what looks to be Holden Astra’s (below) will commence at the beginning of December, so keep your eye out for one and ensure you are on your best behaviour.
Google maps is looking at incorporating new technology into their already wildly popular system, which would allow users to see real time traffic issues, so they could avoid congestion.
This system has already been trialled in the US, with some success, especially in the traditional gridlock locations such as Los Angeles. With the rise in Internet capable mobile devices, drivers will be able to make adjustments on the fly to their route.
The technology to do this in Australia will be supplied by Intelematics Australia, a company that already has the technology. The initial roll out will cover roads along the East Coast, including regional areas.
The way Intelematic’s system works is through a wide range of sources, which include in road sensors and cameras throughout the covered areas. One of the advantages of this system is that it uses the traffic light controller data in each area.
As of today, Google has launched the product for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Included in these major cities are satellite areas such as Woollongog, Geelong, the Sunshine Coast and the Central Coast.
After playing around with the system this morning (it’s research boss, I swear!) the system has plenty of potential- you can plan your journey using the normal Google interface, and then have the traffic overlay. By dragging your route, you can avoid any congestion in planning your trip. Once on the road, you could use a mobile device (or at least get your navigator to do so) and see how the progress is coming along, and whether the traffic has cleared up.
Google could be seen as an ever changing organism that constantly adapts to what it believes is the end user’s needs, whether they understand them or not. In the latest evolution of the search engine, Google has started location-based results to searches that don’t involve a location.
Take for example a search for the term “sushi”. Rather than just listing 10 sites, Google has started adding a map result listing either 3 or 10 different after the 4th result. See the screenshot below:
There are some interesting caveats in the results. After we tested the results, we found the following:
- There are variations for the number of map results that are displayed. We have seen results that have 3 map listings, as well as results with 10 listings. For less popular searches, there are fewer results displayed. For the more popular (competitive results) they display the extended list.
- The term you search for has a huge influence on whether the results are displayed. Variations such as plurals will make a difference if the results are displayed.
- It’s not just businesses that display these results, it’s also other results like swimming pools, parks and schools.
Google determines which results to serve by your IP address. This works well if you are hosted near your actual location, however if you are on an interstate/international hosting, you may see results different to what you would want. We are confident that Google will continue to modify this service, to ensure that the most accurate locations are shown.
These changes will hopefully make searching easier, as results will be tailored for a specific location. Google Maps has become an excellent marketing tool over the last few months, bringing highly qualified traffic to specific local businesses.
Some recent updates the to the Street View interface on Google Maps are just plain great. The video below demos the recent changes, or you can read about them here on the LatLong blog.
The latest innovation from the team at Google Maps, among a flurry of other announced features, is “My Location” that uses fancy-pants triangulation between mobile phone transmission towers to help you find yourself on a google map by browsing the web from your phone (to within a certain approximated area that is - but hey it’s still pretty nifty!).
The service is in Beta testing currently. This video from the Google channel on YouTube explains how it works;
In an effort by Google to ensure Google Maps are up to date and accurate, they have now changed the service to allow users with a Google account to log in and move the markers on the maps so that they are in the right place. If you see something misplaced, such as a marker for your business address or even your own home you can fix it up by dragging the marker to the correct position on the map.
What you can’t do is go rushing out and purposefully move your competitor markers to Tasmania as the Google folks, being the clever people they are have already thought of that and will log changes and allow users to report abuse. Even though these measures are in place, to save yourself time and headaches, it’s important if you are a business owner to claim and verify your listing so that others cannot make changes to your marker position.
Local search is growing rapidly, and those who use Google for searches daily would have noticed that certain location-specific search terms now show Google Map results in the top 3 positions - so get onto Google maps now and ensure your business is listed and that the pointer is in the correct position to help your customers find you!
