Google Places Adds “Tags” Upgrade

Posted in: Search Engine Marketing | Posted on: July 8th 2010 | By: Mark Mitchell

Upgrade Your Google Places Listing With A "Tag"

Tags are little yellow icons next to your Google Places or local listing next to the map on the search results page. According to Google tags do the following:

“Tags allow business owners to promote important aspects of their businesses. Scroll over tags on Google or click on the sponsored link to view coupons, photos, or other select features.”

These tags are a flat $25.00 per month and can be added to your listing via the “Google Places” interface in your account. At the moment it looks like a really great and inexpensive way to get more attention to your listing. When the program reaches full stride and every listing has this added feature I’m not sure it will be very effective, but in the meantime it is working well.

Google test marketed the program in early February in Houston Texas and San Jose California, and it was obvious to most at the time that they were gunning for the Yellow Pages. They have been making several obvious efforts to go after the $13 billion dollar Yellow Page market in recent years.

Another issue they are trying to overcome with this listing upgrade is the adversity many small businesses have towards Adwords. The average busy mom and pop small business finds Adwords too complicated to setup and manage.

”We are acknowledging that AdWords is really complex for small-business owners,” said John Hanke, a vice president of product management for Google.

Met with this difficulty, many businesses burn through a few hundred bucks and call it quits. Google is hoping this new promotional tool will be adapted by a much wider audience who appreciates it’s simplicity and cost effectiveness.