I received an interesting invitation yesterday from the Google Maps team.
They are reaching out to local small business owners hosting an event in San Francisco city hall called “Favorite Places - Celebrating Local Businesses.”
This is the first event like this that I’ve seen from the Google Local Business Center. Given some of the trouble that small business owners have had communicating with Google about issues with their local profiles, I’m hoping this is the beginning of a broader outreach effort by Google to local business owners.
Google Favorite Places event invite
Many small business owners that have set up a nice profile in the Google Local Business Center have really come to depend on the traffic and customer inquiries generated from their local profiles and related search results in the Google 10-Pack.
But when problems happen - I know several local business owner who’s profiles were mixed up with other businesses - there is almost no way for them to get the issues corrected.
As many of my colleagues have pointed out, Google is providing a very valuable service here, but business owners need better communication and support from Google.
Let’s hope this event is the beginning of a new “proactive” outreach program by Google to small business owners!