Will Scott Speaks on Google Places and Maps Optimization at Pubcon 2012

August 24th, 2012 by Search Influence Alumni

Your Google Place page and Maps location are flagship representations of your business, and often the first information potential customers will see. Our CEO Will Scott will contribute to a panel on optimizing these crucial pages at Pubcon 2012, and you can get a preview of the action below! Will has previously spoken at several Pubcons, and he’s honored to be included in the lineup again — be sure to check out the video after the jump.

Transcription (edited):

 

Arnie: Hi. I’m Arnie Kuenn, President of Vertical Measures. We’re a search, social and content marketing agency in Phoenix, Arizona and I’d like to introduce you to Will Scott. He’s the President of Search Influence in New Orleans. How are you doing today, Will?

Will: Doing great, Arnie. Thanks for having me.

Arnie: Super. So, I look forward to seeing you in Vegas. I think I only get to see you about once, maybe twice a year at different conferences and almost always at Pubcon. This year, you’re presenting on a panel called “Google Places and Maps Optimization”. I know that with what everything Google’s doing this year, it’s a big, fast-moving topic, and I wonder if maybe you could tell our viewers a little bit about what you’re going to cover and we’ll go from there.

Will: There’s going to be three of us on the panel. I’ve presented before a bunch of times with Mary Bowling. The third guy, whose name is escaping me right at this second, has done this panel that I’ve seen before at Pubcon. So, I think there’s going be some really good knowledge up on the panel.

What I want to focus mostly on is how you can start to integrate some of the social updates and what you can do to get your reviewer’s to get their shining faces to show up on your Google Plus Places page.

It’s funny, but recently in New Orleans, where Search Influence is located, we were contacted by a Google Places community manager. So, people don’t know this but Google Plus Places, they call themselves, are now deploying community managers the same way Yelp has been for the last couple of years.

So, of course, this being New Orleans, we brought her over and gave her a couple of drinks and tried to ply her for information. But, hopefully, I’ll have more from her by the time we actually get out to Pubcon.

Arnie: You had mentioned a tip that you might want to offer everybody who’s watching regarding their new Google Plus Places pages. That’s a tongue twister.

Will: Say it three times fast. Well, there is one critical thing – and this is something that we have just learned by experience. The critical thing is to get your reviewers to sign up for Google Plus. Because if your reviewers sign up for Google Plus, rather than just having anonymous reviewers out there, their faces show up much like the Facebook face box that you see on people’s websites.

Their faces will show up right there in your Google Plus Places page. The impact of having people’s faces there as opposed to just the little blue headed Google user can be pretty significant when you’re trying to get people to come into your business.

Arnie: Yeah. I suppose Google has a way in their algorithm, or it will soon, to be able to track anyone who has registered through Google Plus to know if they’re an authority or not.

Will: Yeah. You would think so. I mean, there’s a lot of discussion about the idea of author rank and whether or not Google knows that you’re an authoritative user. But I think as one starts interacting more and more with Google Plus, it’s going to have a big impact on the relative ranking of reviewers within that whole Google Plus local system.

Of course, just today, there was another announcement of Google buying a TripAdvisor-like company. So, now it’s not just going to be restaurant reviews. It’s going to be places and venues. So, you can see that Google is throwing a pretty big stake in the ground on this one.

Arnie: Yep, super. I actually have not seen that yet, today. But you know how it is. It all comes at you awfully fast.

Will: It’s a Monday. If you leave the twitters for a minute, they go by too fast.

Arnie: Right, exactly. Well, listen. That is all the time we have. I hope everybody tries to make it out to Las Vegas in October and the day suddenly escaped me. I think it’s the 15th through the 17th.

But, anyway, you can go to pubcon.com, and you’ll find the schedule for Las Vegas and look for Will. He always gives a great session and I want to thank you for your time, Will. I really appreciate it and we’ll see you in just a couple of months from the time we’re recording this.

Will: Arnie thanks so much for doing this with me. I really look forward to seeing you personally in Vegas.

Arnie: All right, thanks Will.

About Arnie Kuenn:
Arnie Kuenn is the president of Vertical Measures, a search, social & content marketing company helping their clients get more traffic, more leads, and more business. Arnie has held executive positions in the world of new technologies and marketing for more than 20 years. He is a frequent speaker and author of content marketing book Accelerate! Moving Your Business Forward Through the Convergence of Search, Social & Content Marketing available on Amazon. You can find Arnie on Twitter, Google Plus and LinkedIn

About PubCon:
Pubcon is the premier search and social media conference and expo and Will be taking place in Las Vegas from October 16th -18th, 2012. Pubcon Las Vegas 2012, supported by the industry’s leading businesses, speakers, exhibitors, and sponsors involved in social media, Internet marketing, search engines, and online advertising, Will offer a week-long look at the future of technology presented by many of the world’s top speakers. Check out conference updates on Twitter (@PubCon).