Google Maps Tag

Managing Your Company’s Reputation on Google Place Pages

It’s an inescapable fact of modern business that the public’s impression of your company will be shaped in large part by what they find about you on the search engines, particularly if you are a small business. A couple of negative reviews or a few people venting on a Ripoff Report can deter customers from your business for months or even years to come. Up until recently, many of the channels for voicing your opinion were catered to the consumer, but Google is looking to even the playing field for those on the business side of things.

This problem has been an acute concern for locally based businesses in particular—such as restaurants and service companies—that pop up in a section of Google Maps known as Place Pages. Essentially, this works as an online directory, complete with directions, reviews and details about the company. Traditionally, customers have been able to post reviews and comments at will, but there has never been a formal avenue for a response from the company. Google recently announced that businesses will be able to respond to these comments, offering an opportunity to manage their public image.

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What’s Happening In Google Maps

You have to admit, Google does an amazing job with Google Maps.  How Mapquest is still is business is beyond me.  Did you know they also now have Streetview?  Google has been and continues to be the leader in online maps and directions.  This week, the search engine rolled out some interesting features across it’s maps.

About a month ago, Google gave Map-goes an option to enable a few beta features.  Amoung those that make the list, a click and zoom tool which allows you to zoom into a certain area by creating a simple box with your mouse.  The feature it great esspecially if you want to zoom into a certain area faster.  Another feature Google released is known as Aerial Imagery.  It gives you  “rotatable, high-resolution overhead” images.  The downpart to this, is that it’s only avaliable in certain areas, but the good news is that the search engine giant plans on explaning that in the near future.  (more…)