Posted by Holly Fawcett on Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Last week, Google announced that it was replacing Google Places with a more integrated version of both Maps, Google Places and reviews site Zagat (acquired by Google last year) with a service called Google+ Local. What does this mean for your recruitment business? Well, basically – Google Plus has now just become your online Yellow Pages, and it’s now even more necessary to get yourself on the platform. If you run local offices (or simply want to highlight where you’re actually located), this integration is ideal for your business.
We’ve written numerous blogs about Google Plus about how to set up your Google Plus page for Business (like here and here), so if you’ve not got a Google+ Business page, set one up as soon as you can. It’s really simple and similar in how Facebook Pages operate. However, where it’s more useful is that Google search results listings are being influenced by your Google+ presence and the searcher’s social graph (highlighting websites who’ve had a +1 – or a vote of confidence essentially – from a friend of theirs). Also, with over 160 million members, it’s bigger than LinkedIn and one of the fastest-growing social networks in history.
The biggest trend for 2012 has been the growth in mobile searching, and where appropriate Google will prioritize local (often City) listings of businesses if one searches for businesses with those keywords using their current location. Local listings, complete with the company’s address, phone number and their Google+ page, are found at the top of the results (see the screenshot below of the word “Recruitment” typed into Google – local listings with their Google+ pages and reviews).