There has been a lot of hype this week surrounding Google’s launch of its latest business tool ‘Google My Business’. This is the latest upgrade to Google’s business listing platform and has finally managed to bring together all its business tools into one simple, user-friendly dashboard.
The new platform brings together Google+ Local, Maps, Places, Reviews, Insights, Adwords, Analytics and Hangouts in one simple dashboard. Although this latest update does not appear to include any new functionality it has successfully combined many existing tools into a single tool that will make managing a businesses web presence in Google much easier for businesses.
Businesses already listed in Google Places will find that their pages have automatically been migrated to the new system and when logged in they will see a dashboard similar to this:
- Business Information The first panel on your dashboard will provide you with an overview of your businesses listing. It contains the following parts:
a. Business information: logo, business name, web address, opening hours, description, phone number etc.
b. A quick link to edit your business information and settings
c. Quick access to add new business photos for display in Google Search Results
d. A preview of your Google Business View tour, or a link to the Google Business View website - Social Access a handy post submission tool has been provided for you to encourage sharing of news on your Google + page
- Insights is a view into how your business is showing up in Google’s search results. You can see how often your business is being seen, whether people are responding to it and who your audience is. This data is similar to what you would find when logged into your Webmaster Tools account.
- Reviews provides you with direct access to your Google+ Reviews. For more information on the importance of Google+ Reviews read our article Google Plus Reviews – Go Get Em
- Adwords Express quick access to your Adwords Express Campaigns
- Google Analytics If you have set up your Google Analytics account on the same account you will see an overview of your website statistics here
- Start a Hangout Quick access to Google Hangouts has been added to encourage interactive video based interaction with your followers.
All in all, businesses should be very happy with this latest update as it provides a handy one stop shop for all their business needs. If you weren’t already using Google Places you should definitely take advantage of the marketing benefits of Google My Business.
