I received an interesting email this week from a very trusted source related to all things Google Places. Apparently there are four Google Places Technical Reps calling on businesses in Kansas City and one of his clients had the good fortune to meet with and quiz this official. Here is a summary of what was conveyed during this meeting.

Google Places Technical Reps

This technical Google Places manager confirmed that Google has 4 reps in Kansas City and is rolling out similar resources elsewhere across the country in the coming months.

Google Places Reviews

Google is going to begin advocating to businesses that they set up computers/workstations where clients can post live reviews in their place of business. There is no penalty for “same IP address” moving forward, assuming a “reasonable number”. The technical Places sales rep indicated 10 or less per would be acceptable, and more if the business type warranted it.

I have already advised some of my service clients to start carrying laptops or tablet computers to solicit reviews while on the job. The reviewer will need a Google account of some type to post a review for your service.

Multiple Listings Stuck in the “Pending” State

If you get to a point of multiple listings, and they just seem to be stuck in pending, this technical Google Places manager confirmed our long-standing belief, just start over in a new account.

Google Places Account Suspension

Once again, this technical Google Places manager confirmed that if you get your account suspended, it will NEVER get fixed. Just start over with a new account.

Facebook Fan Pages and Google

Tie your Places Page into your Facebook Fan Page. Do this by copying the link from within your Google Places page and pasting it in your actual Facebook Fan Page, should you have a page for your business. The Google Places manager indicated it was a VERY good thing to do and strongly recommended every business serious about Google Places do it. Enough said!

Question. Is it better to be at the top of the Google Places listings or anywhere within the listing layout with more reviews than my competitors?

Every business wants to be on the first page of a Google search result when people are searching for their products or services. The top of that search result page to be exact. It is common knowledge that the listings at the top of the search result page receive the majority of the search traffic to that page. For local businesses, this means the A, B or C position within the Google Places listings.

This week I was forwarded an email from a friend whose company is heavily involved in market research for small businesses. One of their clients commissioned a study to see what local listing people clicked on first in a number of search results where one of the businesses within the Google Places search result was not at the top of the listings but had a greater number reviews compared to the other listings. The results? Regardless of the positions of those sites with the greatest number of Google reviews, those high review sites were clicked on first more times as those sites in the A, B or C positions.

The report concluded that having a greater number of reviews showing on your Google Places listing, regardless of the actual position of your listing, provided more first clicks on that results page than the local business listings that were in the A, B or C positions.

Reviews matter and influence searchers regardless of your Places Page listing positions. You may never attain a A, B or C position within the Places listing layout but you can out review your competitors with a little effort. My next post will explain exactly how you can do that.

Google Places pages now dominate local search results. Google recently released into their index almost 50 million unclaimed Google Places pages. Many local search results now include unclaimed Google Places pages. This was made possible in part by the mass clean sweep Google implemented in the last months of 2010. Tens of thousands of long time Google Places pages were literally deleted from the index due to a variety of reasons related to TOS violations. For millions of local businesses, there may be a place for you beside the Google local search map if you claim and optimize your local Google Places page before your competitors beat you to it.

You can claim your Google Places page by finding your business listing in a Google search. Inside of Google Places for your location, search for your business phone, business address or website. This search should provide you with the link to your Google Places page. On that page you can claim your listing by clicking on this link at the top right of the listing.

You can also start here.

Once you have claimed your Google Places page, give me a call to fully optimize your Places page so your business can be found in local search results on the Google map and in the natural search results.

Google is now letting local businesses respond to reviews that get posted on their Google Places Page. This will be huge for reputation management for small local business owners who frequently are target by bad reviews from legitimate and sometimes not so legitimate reviews. You must have your listing verified before you are able to respond to reviews.

To help business owners in responding to what can be irate customers, Google offers the following recommendations.

1. Be nice. This isn’t just a guideline — it’s also a good idea. You aren’t going to win an argument with a frustrated customer. And you don’t want to burn any bridges. Even customers who initially had a bad experience might come back.
2. Don’t get personal. Remember that you’re replying to feedback about an experience, not about you as a person. Reply in a way that addresses the overall experience, and remember that there’s a real person on the other end. If you believe the review violates the posting guidelines, please use the Flag as inappropriate link.
3. Feedback is helpful. Both positive and negative feedback can be good for your business and help it grow (even though it’s sometimes hard to hear). Think of all feedback as an opportunity to improve.

This is excellent advice, especially #2.

Google also offers some ground rules for what to post as a business owner responding to negative reviews.

1. Be polite and professional. You’re responding to one person, but the response is public. Keep your responses useful, readable, and courteous.
2. Keep it short and sweet. Users are looking for genuine responses, but not necessarily novels. Don’t say in twenty words what you can say in ten.
3. Be appropriate. Responses should comply with our local content policy.
4. Be thankful. A customer who has written a review has taken the time to invest in the success of your business.
   • Respond to happy reviewers when you have new or relevant information to share.You don’t need to thank every reviewer publicly. One response reaches to lots of customers, not just one.
   • Feedback is a chance to improve. If you’ve made a business improvement based on a review, thank the user and share the change. You don’t need to address every single complaint.

5. Be a friend, not a salesperson. Your reviewers are already customers, so there’s no need to offer incentives or advertisements. Tell reviewers something new about your business. Share a tip or something they might not know from their first visit.

Google also offers reviewer posting guidelines.

• Don’t spam or post fake reviews intended to boost or lower ratings.
• Don’t post or link to content that is sexually explicit or contains profanity.
• Don’t post or link to content that is abusive or hateful or threatens or harasses others.
• Don’t post or or link to any file that contains viruses, corrupted files, “Trojan Horses,” or any other contaminating or destructive features that may damage someone else’s computer.
• Don’t post any material that violates the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of others.
• Don’t impersonate any person, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.
• Don’t violate any other applicable law or regulation.
• Don’t use comments as a forum for advertisement.

Also.

• Make your comments useful and informative
• Post clear, valuable, and honest information specific to the content which you are reviewing. content which you are reviewing.
• Try to include both positives and drawbacks.
• Be nice to others; don’t attack others.
• Keep it readable; don’t use excessive capitalization and punctuation.
• Use good grammar and check your spelling.

Unfortunately, this information targeted towards those posting reviews will probably never be seen by 99% of consumers doing the reviewing.

Reputation management is almost always something a business reacts to as opposed to planning for. The time to control what shows up in a search for your business name should be before something negative is posted online. I offer reputation management services for those needing help with this segment of a businesses online presence.