Thursday, May 31, 2012

Google+ Gets Local

Yesterday Google rolled out Google+ Local for businesses. Upon logging into your Google+ account, you will see the new “Local” icon on your right-side navigation bar. A local business listing provides access to features such as photos, reviews, and a new scoring guide (Zagat's 30-point scoring system). You’ll notice there is unquestionably a stronger emphasis on reviews and photos at the top of the listings.

However, Google instructs businesses to continue using Google Places for Business to manage their listing information. There will be more news to come on how you can go about linking your Google+ business page to your Google+ Local listing.

At first glance, although Google attempted to make the layout clean with the white space – the listings still look "crowded". Perhaps because it rolled out yesterday and I haven’t been able to spend a great deal of time in Local, I’m just not loving my first impression from a layout/usability perspective.

How do you see your business using Google+ Local?

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