Massive Google Search Changes

For quite some time, Google has used its “Places” search engine when your search contains a recognised locality – say, “Gold Coast” or “Melbourne”.  When this happened, you would see map results and a nice little map with pins on it.   You would still get the 3 paid-for-listings at the top of your search engine results page, as well as more advertisements down the right hand side. But the majority of the results in the left column would be the “natural” Google results (usually referred to as “organic results”).  That has now completely changed for many searches.

The Big Change - Local Targeted Searches -v- SEO Power Houses

Google has now made it so that the Places results replace the majority of the organic results of the first page.  If you search on a locality + a service or product, the chances are that the majority of results will be from the Google Places results, not the organic results.  Try using the following searches:

• Broadbeach dentist
• Melbourne lawyer
• gold coast florist

If you type your location and your business/product type into Google and see Places results (little orange pins in the search results), then any organic results you had will be effected.  If this is the case for your business, you should read on.

What Does This Mean?

• It means this is an opportunity – this big cutover is very new (end of October 2010).  A majority of websites are not geared for this change.  If you choose to do something about this information, then faster is better.
• Having a Google Places profile is now critical to being found – you cannot make it into the places listings without one.
• Having consumers rating/reviewing your service/product favourably is important, as the Google Places engine places great importance on consumer feedback; and it is listed in your Google Places profile
• Graphics and movies in your Google Places profile will entice more visitors – people like pictures and will click them before text
• If applicable, having external reviews will mean more business – Google will show reviews from tripadvisor relating to travel websites.

Conclusion

It’s a radical change for Google, as they are essentially placing locality and consumer rating before textual website content.  This is a massive change to their previous approach where “text is everything”.  For many business, text is still everything, but for more popular consumer products and services, that just isn’t the case.

You can read more about the changes by searching on “google places update” or by visiting the official Google Places site here:

http://www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter

Alternatively, contact us on 07 5530 4496 if you'd like some assistance in capitalising on this change and some plain-speaking advice on how it applies to your business website.