What small business needs to know
On the 30th of May 2012, Google officially replaced Google Places with Google+ Pages.
Now whilst this should have been a seamless transition nothing is ever as simple as it seems!
Reviews have been disappearing, clients have been confusing Google Places with Google+ Pages and claiming your Google Place (new look and feel) has proven difficult to update imagery etc. to reflect your branding. Needless to say, the merger between Google+ Pages and Google Places has not been as harmonious as we would have liked and I believe the folks in the Googleplex will be pulling their hair out on this one.
For small businesses it is critical to get your Google+ Pages correct and link this with your website as these appear in the Google search results and consume a lot of prime ‘real estate’ within these search results.
What should I do with Google+ for my small business?
The best advice we can give you in the interim is to sit back and wait and see. Google is really being challenged by Facebook and this looks like a tactical move to force more personal users onto Google+ so they then have to create a business page (Google+ Page) off these personal Google+ accounts. It may be worthwhile creating a personal Google+ page in the interim. Unfortunately though if reviews etc. have gone missing this may well be a permanent state of affairs.