Phil

Google Places Disappearing Details

July 22, 2011 by Phil 4 Comments

I thought I’d noticed all the changes to the Google Places layout yesterday, when Google rolled out the changes. But I didn’t.

Susan Walsh of elsue.com has kindly pointed out to me that the “Additional Details” area is missing from all Google Places listings. I thought something else seemed different…

This is a shame, because the “Details” section has always been a great way for businesses to tell customers facts about their business that maybe. Maybe 2% of businesses abused this by “keyword-stuffing,” but I’d say about 98% of businesses didn’t fill it with junk (or didn’t use it at all).

But it will be interesting to see what—if anything—Google replaces the “Details” area with. Businesses need a way to convey the odd-ball stuff to potential customers.

UPDATE: The odd thing is that I’m still seeing the Details fields intact when signed into the “Edit” area of a Google Places listing. Maybe these are on the way out, too…

Google Places Review Change: Test or Takeover?

July 21, 2011 by Phil 5 Comments

If you’ve looked up any business in Google Places today, you’d have noticed two BIG changes to the layout.

One change screams at users to write a review through their Google account—and not through a third-party site like Yelp or InsiderPages. The other change makes the reviews customers have written you through these other sites far less visible on your Google Places page.

Some more detail:

Change 1: Big Red Google Review Buttons

BIG buttons for customers to write reviews w/ their Google account s

Both of these buttons were there on the Places page before, but they were far less visible—appearing as small text links rather than as big, visible buttons.

It’s always been a little tricky for customers to write a review of a business through their Google accounts—especially if a business owner asks them to write a review but they don’t have a Google account set up yet and have to take the necessary detour to sign up for one.

For some time Google has been trying to get more of its users to write reviews. It’s all part of an effort on Google’s part to make the Places Page “one-stop shopping” for customers to learn about local businesses—so that they don’t spend as much time reading reviews on other sites. This is a step in the direction of making Google Places more self-contained, and not reliant on reviews written elsewhere.

Change 2: No More Review Excerpts from non-Google Sites

Gone are the review excerpts from other sites. They don’t show up on your Places page any more.

Until today, you could have a total of 8 review excerpts showing up on your Google Places page: a maximum of 2 excerpts written by customers with Google accounts, and another 6 excerpts from reviews written on sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, etc.

Now your Google Places page can have a maximum of only TWO excerpts of reviews written by Google users:

New: no reviews excerpts from third-party review sites

Also, until today, all of your reviews would show up next to the little “average review stars.” That is, if you had a bunch of reviews written by Google users and a bunch of reviews that customers wrote through other sites, all your reviews would show up as one grand-total number–one big happy family:

The other day, if you looked at the Circus Circus casino in the local search results, you’d see that it has over 47,000 (!) reviews, written by its patrons on all kinds of third-party sites. Now all you see from the outside is “143 reviews”—the total number of reviews that Circus Circus patrons have written through their Google accounts:

New: total review numbers no longer include non-Google reviews

So Google is showcasing reviews written by Google users, and is paying far less attention to reviews written on sites like Yelp, CitySearch, and many others.

All this could be another one of Google’s tests. But if these changes are at least semi-permanent, they represent the latest step in Google’s effort to make itself the “one-stop shop” for information about local businesses—including the customer reviews that used to be the domain of other, non-Google sites.

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By the way, I just noticed that Mike Blumenthal and Chris Piepho noticed this change a couple of hours ago. Credit to those guys for putting some great thoughts on paper regarding these changes.

I could blab on and on about the implications of this change–and I probably will in a subsequent post!—but I’d love to hear your thoughts on this change.

The 1st Annual Google Places Freak Show

July 17, 2011 by Phil 25 Comments

I spend a lot of time talking about what you should do to rank well in Google Places. One way I do this is by focusing on patterns: I try to show you what qualities are most common among businesses that have top rankings in their local markets

But we haven’t spent nearly as much time discussing what you should NOT do with your Google Places listing. Nor have we taken a good look at the businesses that just don’t do what the others do.

Hence this 1^st Annual Google Places Freak Show. It’s the fun-filled day devoted to the extremes of local Google—the strange businesses that you and I and customers across the country stumble across occasionally.

I want to point out here that I am NOT using the word “freak” pejoratively. Some of these businesses just have some aspect about them that’s extremely unusual. And I’m not passing judgment on the businesses that aren’t following “best practices” for attracting customers through Google Places: I’m just using them as examples of what not do. Above all, I’m using the term simply to refer to business listings and not to people.

By the way, these businesses all rank on the first page of local search results, last I checked. Most of the ones that are “extreme” in a bad way aren’t actually doing anything that hurts their local rankings in Google (which are usually quite good): rather, they’re doing things that simply might turn away potential customers who see these businesses in Google Places.

Anyway, grab some cotton candy and let’s check out some freaks.

—Lamest Photo—

This is tough. If you’re a septic tank-installation service, what’s an enticing photo you can use in your Google Places listing that’s relevant to the service you provide? These guys chose to use a picture of a manhole cover. At least they didn’t use a picture of a toilet.

I think the lesson here is this: if you can’t think of a picture to use for your Places listing that “paints a picture” of the service you provide, don’t try to get too creative or abstract.

For example, if you’re in a service industry—particularly one that’s not necessarily glamorous—it’s perfectly fine to take a picture of your crew in front of your truck. It’s better than taking a boring, abstract picture that doesn’t tell potential customers anything about your business or why you provide a better service than your local competitors do.

If you’re coming up dry for photo ideas, look at what other businesses use for photos.

—Scariest Photo—

There are a lot of things wrong with this photo. Many of them are obvious to both of us. But here’s how I’d explain why it’s not a good Google Places photo:

It’s distracting. It’s an effective photo insofar as it’s eye-catching—but that’s where the effectiveness ends. But once it catches your eye, the gut reaction likely is “Eww,” not “Hey, cool tattoo.”

Worst of all, it showcases the canvas, not the art. The owner should have taken a few extra minutes or spent a few extra bucks to take a crisp, up-close picture of just the tattoo. Potential customers want to see the craftsmanship. They search in Google for local tattoo parlors by typing in “tattoo,” not “chest.”

By the way, I just can’t make heads or tails of the business name. I have no idea what it means. Do you?

—Angriest Market—

This is a very “tough room,” as standup comedians say. The customers consistently dislike the businesses listed in the Google Places top-7—big time.

The average rating of these businesses is 2.75 stars. The minimum average rating is 1-star, and the maximum is 5. This pitiful average rating is the first thing that stands out about this market.

The other thing that’s unusual about this market is how motivated the customers are to leave harsh reviews. These businesses have a total of 176 reviews. That’s an average of 29 reviews for each listing that has reviews (or an average of 25 if you count the one business that doesn’t have any reviews).

I’m sure there are plenty of markets out there that have sunken even lower into the smelly pits of customer dissatisfaction. But it’s the combination of the low average rating and the high numbers of ticked-off customers that makes this market a “freak.”

It just goes to show how sometimes the bar for ranking well in Google Places can be pretty low. I’m just waiting for a bridal shop with impeccable customer service to hang their shingle in Google Places, drum up some 5-star reviews, and squash the local competition like roaches.

—Least Loved—

Generally, the people who are most likely to review your business spontaneously either love it or hate it. You and I intuitively know that nobody can please everybody—which is why just about every business has at least a few bad reviews.

If your business has a few stinkers, no big deal. Customers are used to seeing a few bad reviews.

But people are also used to seeing at least a few positive reviews. This cab service has none. It has a one-star average rating. That’s the lowest possible rating you can receive from a customer: there is no such thing as zero stars.

Maybe this is a great cab service. But the reviews sure don’t paint that picture (just look up their reviews to see what I mean).

—Most Terrifying Review—

I don’t know what happened in the doctor’s office that day.

What I do know is most of us have had less-than-pleasant visits to one doctor or another at one time or another in our lives.

Patients generally heed what other patients say about doctors. Kind of the opposite of that Seinfeld episode where the doctor offends Elaine by telling her that she’s a “difficult” patient and Jerry agrees with the doctor.

Bottom line: this doctor needs a LOT of shining reviews to outweigh this review. The other bottom line is that you need a way to gather reviews from your satisfied customers—because one scathing review can be a deal-killer for anyone who sees it—whether the review is true or not.

—Sketchiest-Looking Business—

No website. No reviews. No picture. No contact information or name of business owner. No apparent business location even when you take a look at the address in “Street View.” I’m sure they know to come to you.

The listing isn’t verified, so this Google Places listing likely isn’t the deliberate work of the business owner. Still…would you feel comfortable calling that phone number?

To get the full effect, just search for this Baltimore, umm, business in Google.

—Most Disorienting Search Result—

Where does a lady from Long Beach, CA go when she wants a manicure? Aboard the RMS Queen Mary, of course.

If you’re from Long Beach, you probably know that the historic Queen Mary has been converted into a hotel, which now houses a beauty salon—hence the Google Places search result.

But I’m not from Long Beach and I didn’t know that. All I knew is that my grandfather and many other people came to America aboard the Queen Mary.

So when I first stumbled on this particular search result, I just wrote it off as a classic case of lousy Google Places categorization—like when you search for “Italian restaurant” and Google shows you the local Pizza Hut.

In a way, I guess it’s good visibility for the owners of the beauty parlor on the Queen Mary: after all, seeing the old ocean liner in Google’s local business results doesn’t happen every day, and it demands a little bit of your attention.

On the other hand, when a particular business seems out of place in the local search results, people like me might not even click on the Places Page because we think it’s just irrelevant to what we typed into Google.

—Runner-Up: Freakiest Business Name—

It would be one thing if “Sweet Cheeks” was a cosmetics shop that specialized in selling blush. But no: it’s a baby-clothing store. I find this slightly disturbing.

—Winner: Freakiest Business Name—

The business is a body-piercing joint. The location is Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.

What can I possibly say about the name? It’s brilliant.

One last thing before I turn it over to the Ringmaster

As I said, all of these “freaks” rank in the top-7 of Google Places. At least for the time being, their visibility is pretty good—and to the extent they’ve tried to rank visibly, they’ve more or less succeeded.

But there’s more to attracting local customers than just a good local ranking. When people click on the listing, what happens? Are they attracted, or repulsed? Do they want to pick up the phone or leave your Google listing?

Some businesses, like “Just Another Hole,” are deliberately strange in a clever way. But for some of the others, I wouldn’t be surprised if their business owners called me and said they weren’t getting too many actual customers, despite their rankings. I’d tell them to pay more attention to the gut-level first impressions their Google Places listings create.

Whatever your ranking, I suggest you pay attention to how your Google listing comes across at a gut level. Ask friends, family, or customers who haven’t seen it to take a look and give you their first impressions. You’ll ensure that YOUR business won’t ever make it into a future Google Places Freak Show.

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Do you have a “freak” you’d like to submit?

Do you have some strong opinions about the ones you just saw?

Let me know: drop me a line or leave a comment! (I might even include it in the next Freak Show.)

5 Easy Experiments for Your Google Places Listing

July 6, 2011 by Phil 12 Comments

Are you a gritty, gutsy gambler? Do you like taking business risks, especially when there’s the possibility of making more money than you do today?

If so, that may be bad news for your business’s local visibility in Google Places.

Sure, you can use your drive and determination to hammer away at trying to get visible in Google Places FAST—but it probably won’t work. Google usually doesn’t reward furious flurries of changes. Rather, the best way to get lasting visibility that actually attracts local customers is to take small, deliberate steps.

But you also need to be able to retrace your steps. The steps need to be reversible and low-risk—so that you can see to what extent they actually help your local visibility versus harm it.

5 experiments for boosting your local visibility in Google Places

AKA an experiment. You can build a better local ranking by experimenting with your Google Places listing.

I’m assuming your business is somewhat visible, but not as visible as you’d like. (If you’re nowhere to be found, you have no business reading this and instead should spend time applying the steps in my free guide to local visibility.) Maybe you’re ranked #8 and are just barely missing the first page of local search results. Or maybe your business is pretty visible locally, but for the wrong search terms.

These 5 low-risk experiments can help you feel your way to better visibility to local customers. Even though it takes a couple of weeks to “run” most of them to completion, each takes only a minute or two to implement.

The best part is you’re not taking a big plunge by trying these experiments: save your gutsiness for the next BASE-jumping competition. See how many of the following you can try out.

1. Tweak your Google Places “Categories”

Why: Picking a new lineup of relevant “Categories” can help you rank more highly for different local search terms—possibly including the ones you’ve been trying to get visible for.

How to do it: Log into your Google listing, go to where you edit/update your listing, and change some of the “Categories” fields.

When to do this experiment: If you rank poorly in Google Places, or if you only seem to rank well for searches that aren’t completely relevant to you (for instance, if you’re a house painter and don’t rank well for the term “house paining” but do rank well for “paint supply”).

When NOT to do it: If you rank well locally (top-7, AKA page 1) for the search terms you want to be visible for.

How you know if it works: After a week or two, see if your business is visible in Google Places for terms that it wasn’t visible for previously, or see if you notice a boost in ranking.

More detail: If you’ve already selected categories that clearly describe your services or business, keep them. In general, only try changing the “iffier” ones. For instance, try changing 2-3 of your categories if there are some that aren’t spot-on relevant to what you offer, or if there are some categories you chose even though you saw plenty of other applicable ones to choose from.

Experiment with your Google Places categories

Another way to do this experiment is by selecting a different number of categories. The maximum is 5, so if you’ve already specified 5, maybe try going with only the most relevant 3. Or if you’ve only chosen a couple, rack your brains to come up with 3 more pertinent ones.

Not completely sure which new categories to try? Mike Blumenthal’s free, ridiculously excellent Google Places Category Tool might help.

2. Try NOT showing your address on your listing

Why: You might become visible in slightly different geographical areas within your local market.

How to do it: In the “Edit” area of your Google listing, select “Yes, this business serves customers at their locations, and then select “Do not show” address:

Try not showing your street address on your Google listing

When to do this experiment: ONLY if you travel to your customers (rather than have them come to your location). Given that, only do this experiment if you’re trying to rank more visibly in a big city but you’re located a few (about 2-6) miles outside the center of the city. Or you can do it if you’d just like to be visible in slightly different specific towns/areas within your local market.

When NOT to do it: If you have any really good rankings in Google Places that you wouldn’t want jostled around.

How you know if it works: Type in a local search term (let’s say “roofing” or “roofer”) and see how visible you are for it. Then go to the “Change Location” bar on the left-hand side of Google and set the location to another town in your local market (a town that you serve). Type in the search term again and see how you rank for it. Repeat this process for other towns in your local market. Then you’ll know whether you’re visible in the local areas you want to be visible in: if you are, great, but if you’re not, then uncheck the “Do not show my business address” box to undo the experiment.

More detail: Your business will appear on the Google Places map as a floating red dot, not as a pin that’s “stuck” in a specific location on the map. If the experiment succeeds, you’ll see your dot and a bunch of pins on the local map that’s on the first page of Google:

Your location won't appear as a "pin" on the local Google map

By the way, you’ll also want to remove mentions of your physical address from your website (at least while you’re running the experiment). Or if you want to try this experiment but feel you really need to include your address on your website, simply create an image that contains your street address, and put the image on your site. (Google can’t read what’s in images, so you won’t be confusing it by not including your address in your Google Places listing but including it on your website.)

3. Narrow or widen your geographical “Service Area”

Very similar to experiment #2. All the same conditions apply. As before, only do it if you travel to customers. Everything else I said about #2 also holds true for #3.

Under “Service Areas and Location Settings,” simply change the “Distance from one location” or “List of areas served.” No guarantees that you’ll be visible exactly where you want, but this at least allows you to tell Google where your local market is.

Try either narrowing or widening your service area. I don’t know your market, so I can’t say for sure which one is more likely to help your visibility. Still, if your main goal is to get visible to customers in one specific town, try narrowing your service area to just encompass that one town. If you serve many local towns maybe try widening your radius by 10 miles.

4. Tweak your Google Places “Description”

Why: It’s a way of establishing your business as relevant to the services you’re trying to get visible for. It’s another little factor that can help you rank more visibly.

How to do it: Go to the “Edit” area of your Google Places listing and change what’s in the “Description” field.

When to do this experiment: This is a “finishing touch,” so only do it if you’re trying to bump up your ranking by 1-2 spots (for a given search term).

When NOT to do it: If you rank in the top-3 for some of the major search terms you want to be found for: in this case, it’s probably not worth rocking the boat by messing with the description.

How you know if it works: You might see a little improvement in ranking.

More detail: Don’t just stuff the description full of “keywords.” It still needs to make sense to a human reader. You should only have a couple (2-4) local search terms in the description. Therefore, the “experiment” shouldn’t extend beyond just trying out slightly different search terms in place of the ones you already use: don’t just shoehorn a bunch of additional search terms into that tiny description box.

5. Add more “Additional Details”

Why: Same reason as #4: another little factor in your favor.

When to do this experiment: It’s really never a bad idea, because the “Details” aren’t a big ranking factor, and you can instantly change them.

How to do it: Scroll down to the bottom of the “Edit” area of your Google Places page and fill in the “Additional Details” fields with more information about the services or products you offer. You might want to mention your specialties, some of the equipment you use, what types of jobs you do or don’t do, your professional certification, etc. Be as detailed as possible.

Try adding more "Additional Details" to your Google listing

How you know if it works: Again…your ranking might go up a notch within a couple of weeks.

More detail: There’s no limit to how many details you can add: Google lets you include as many as you want. And you should use multiple fields: don’t just slop everything into one. Make sure all the details you add make sense to a potential customer and that they aren’t just a parade of keywords.

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By the way, jot down every change you make. The experiments are reversible as long as you remember how you had your Google Places listing before.

The Numbers and Facts on Google Places Reviews

July 2, 2011 by Phil 15 Comments

You may know that customer reviews are a big factor in how your business ranks in the Google Places local search results.

And I’m sure you know reviews are crucial for winning more customers—who often make buying decisions based largely on which local business has the best reviews.

But what facts do you have about reviews in Google Places? For instance, do you know…

—How likely you are to rank in the top-3 if you have the most reviews in your local market?

—How many reviews will you likely need if you want your business to rank on page one of Google Places?

—How many reviews does the average #1 business have?

A closer look at Google Places reviews

I was frustrated at not having the facts. I constantly tell my clients to get reviews, and they ask me all kinds of great questions, which I can usually answer. But when they’d ask me basic questions like the ones above, I was only able to give them partial answers. I don’t want anyone to think I don’t know what I’m doing 🙂

But you couldn’t just poke around online and find the answers to these questions. Sure, there’s a decent amount of general info about customer reviews and their role in Google Places, but I wasn’t able to find a satisfying amount of real numbers or specifics.

I rolled up my sleeves and looked at 1000 local markets in Google Places. I saw 7000 different businesses in all 50 states, and a grand total of 181,718 reviews between them. My goal? To get some concrete facts about the relationship between reviews and top rankings in Google Places.

It took me a while, but I finally got some facts. The numbers confirmed some things I’d suspected for a long time, but also overturned some assumptions I’d been operating under.

If you’d like more facts than you have today and want a better sense of exactly how many reviews you’ll need to rank more visibly in your local market, read on.

“I want my business on the first page of local Google. What’s the ballpark number of reviews I’ll need?”

About 26. The average business on the first page of Google’s local search results has 25.9 reviews, based on my calculations.

As you’d expect, the numbers vary widely from this average: some #1’s have just a couple reviews, whereas some businesses ranked #7 have a couple hundred. But after looking at 7000 businesses in 1000 local markets, I can tell you that if you get 26 customer reviews there’s a good likelihood you’ll get on the first page.

(By the way, if you’re interested in looking at the raw data to see how I arrived at these figures, you can download the spreadsheet.)

**“Which “top 7” ranking had the most reviews most often?”**

In other words, which position most frequently had the most reviews in its local market? The answer is A: 25% of the time the top local ranking (A) had the most reviews.

“How often did the other rankings have the most reviews?”

Of the 1000 local markets, B had the most reviews 160 times, whereas C had the most reviews 154 times. So for all intents and purposes, B and C are tied: each one has the most reviews about 17% of the time. 34% of the time, either B or C has the most reviews.

End result: in any given market, there’s a 59% chance that one of the top 3 rankings (A, B, or C) will also be the one with the most reviews in that market. Therefore, if YOU have the most reviews in your market, there’s about a 60% probability that you’ll rank in the top 3 in Google Places.

The next four rankings (D-G) had the most reviews only 41% of the time. Here’s the breakdown of how often each ranking had the most reviews in its local market (of the 1000 markets I looked at):

% breakdown of how often each local ranking has the most reviews

Note: there were a total of 71 “ties,” in which two or more businesses were tied for the greatest number of reviews in their local market. In most of these cases several businesses had one review and the rest had zero. Because each ranking had similar numbers of “ties” (ranging from 22 to 31) with other rankings, I didn’t include these relatively unusual markets when calculating how often each ranking has the most reviews.

“Which ranking had the most reviews, period?”

C—AKA the #3 ranking. In the 1000 markets I looked at, I counted a grand total of 181,718 reviews. Here’s the breakdown:

A = 33,218

B = 30,488

C = 33,913

D = 23,643

E = 19,522

F = 19,375

G = 21,559

How many total reviews each Google Places ranking has

As you can see, A and B aren’t far behind. If I looked at 10,000 local markets (rather than 1000), maybe A or B would have had the most reviews. Either way, the top 3 rankings all have roughly the same share of reviews, in terms of volume.

The key thing to keep in mind is that there’s a significant gap between the top 3 rankings and the lower 4. A-C had a combined total of 97,619, whereas D-G had a combined 84,099.

Total # of reviews each Google Places ranking has

The top 3 have more than the next 4 put together. That’s a big gap.

The bad news is the bar is pretty high to get into that A-C range. The good news is if you’re in the top 3 in terms of reviews, there’s a good chance your rank will float into A-C rankings in Google Places.

“I want to rank in the top 3. How badly do I have to squash my competition, in terms of getting reviews?”

My estimate is you’ll need about one-and-a-half times as many reviews as your competitors have on average. In exact numbers, the average business that ranks A-C has 33 reviews. The average business that ranks D-G (#4-7) has 21 reviews. You’ll have to outstrip those lower-4 guys by about 50%.

I assume you’d like to rank #1 in Google Places. The average “A” ranking has 33 reviews. The average B-G (#2-7) business has 25 reviews. Therefore, the average #1 business has about 33% more reviews than the 6 competitors right below him have on average.

Here’s what I suggest you do: figure out the average number of reviews that the top 7 businesses have. One-and-a-half times that number is what you should shoot for if you’re trying to outrank the local competition.

“That’s a lot to digest. Can you sum it up?”

Glad you asked! Here’s what I think all the numbers show, big-picture:

—They affirm what you may have known or suspected all along: that reviews clearly help your Google Places ranking

—If you can get 26 reviews or more, you’ll be above the national average for businesses on Page One of Google Places and will probably rank more highly than you do today

—In general, if you can get more reviews than the next guy, the chances improve that you’ll also outrank him

—To be more exact: if you can get 133-150% of the number of reviews your local competitors have on average, you’ll improve your chances of snagging a top 3 ranking

—There’s a big difference between ranks A-C and ranks D-G. The top 3 have more reviews than the next 4 combined. The average top-3 business in Google Places has 50% more reviews than the average business ranked 4-7. Plus, 60% of the time the business with the most reviews in its local Google Places market is ranked in the top 3.

“So what should my review strategy be from now on?”

You need a method for asking your existing customers for reviews. Maybe you have one already. I show you ways to do this in my free guide. If you don’t have it, download it. If you have it, apply the steps.

You need a specific goal number, at least at first. How? Look at the local businesses that show up on the 1^st page of Google Places (maybe you’re one of them), and figure out the average number of reviews those 7 businesses have. Have that number be your first goal, and then 1.5x that number be your next goal.

Keep the reviews coming. Don’t stop at the “finish line.” Your ranking probably won’t go up the day you hit your goal number of reviews. You have to get ahead of your competitors in reviews and stay that way. Google doesn’t like sudden changes, but it does reward long-term effort directed toward things like drumming up reviews: it shows that you’re trying to give potential customers as much information as possible from your existing customers.

If you’re already following this basic approach, hats off to you. In that case, just keep doing what you’re doing.

“By the way, what’s with the big gap between ranks 1-3 and 4-7?”

You may be wondering why there seems to be a gulf between the first 3 and the next 4, in terms of reviews. I have a few half-baked theories:

Theory 1: It’s possible that Google has run tests and concluded that spots A-C in Google Places get significantly more clicks. Therefore, it would make sense to make the standards relatively tough for businesses to get into the top 3, if it’s the case those positions get the lion’s share of the clicks and potential customers.

Theory 2: The top 3 may get significantly more visibility, more customers, and therefore more customers who end up leaving reviews—a nice upward spiral. The greater numbers of reviews may just be a byproduct of having a better ranking due to other reasons.

Theory 3: Google *may* be considering a 3-business layout for Google Places—in which only 3 local search results show up on the 1^st page. They did a brief test of it in early June (which lasted only a few hours), and on the same day I wrote about these possible “3-pack” search results. The tough standards for getting into the top 3 and the *possibility* of 3-pack Google Places results may have something to do with each other.

Possible ways to improve my analysis

My humble study isn’t perfect. Also, even though it was pretty ambitious and I wanted to “bite off” as much as possible, I didn’t want it to be more than I could chew.

Here’s what I think are the “boundaries” of my analysis:

I could have looked at even more markets. 1000 is good, but 2000 is even better. 10,000 is even better than that. Also, even though I examined probably 150 different industries and services, there are even more industries that are worth looking at. More data is always better.

I didn’t look at markets outside the US. I’d like to at some point, but I don’t expect to discover that Google handles reviews differently outside the US. Sure, other countries may have less-dense local markets, where it may be a bit easier to rank in the top 7 in Google Places. But the algorithms are the algorithms, and I doubt that there’s a different one in the UK, another in Australia, others in Canada and Japan, and so on. The specific numbers may vary from country to country, but the basic behavior of reviews probably doesn’t.

I didn’t factor in the quality of the review—whether they’re 1-star or 5-star. I’ve known for a long time that quantity matters more than quality, at least in terms of your ranking, and David Mihm’s “Local Search Ranking Factors” also supports this. (Obviously, you need good reviews or you’ll scare customers away, but that’s a separate discussion.)

I didn’t examine the behavior of reviews written directly on businesses’ Google Places pages versus those written through sites like Yelp, JudysBook, etc. For instance, I don’t know what percentage of #1 rankings have Yelp reviews, nor do I know how many different sites a top 3 business has reviews on. Again, I’d like to delve into this at some point.

I tried to avoid including too many statistical “outliers.”

Extreme numbers create too much noise in the data. For instance, in markets like Las Vegas hotels or casinos, the top 7 businesses listed in Google Places have an average of 2000-8000 reviews apiece. I’d have to look at these markets either exclusively or not at all, because the numbers of reviews in these markets are so far above average that they’d completely overshadow and outweigh the numbers for all the average markets I looked at.

It’s for the same reason that I didn’t include a bunch of uncompetitive markets in which the top 7 businesses all have zero reviews. Many businesses in small towns have absolutely no reviews, except for the most-frequented businesses in these areas, like restaurants and hotels. Maybe if I included the businesses with 10k reviews and all the goose-eggs my numbers would be slightly different—but only slightly.

The markets where the Google Places businesses have thousands of reviews or zero reviews are the exceptions, not the norm. I’m writing this for people who are in markets that are pretty competitive—but that aren’t bloodbaths like Vegas casinos or markets where you’ll rank well if you can fog a mirror. Maybe in another blog post I’ll look at the absolute extremes—but I wrote this one with average-to-tougher markets in mind.