New Google+ Local (formally Places) Dashboard for Service Area Businesses too?

[Susan Walsh]

Hi,

A couple of our clients finally have the new Google+ Local (formally Google Places) dashboard - yeah! But none of our service area businesses or home based businesses that go to the client (sometimes the client comes to their home office) has been upgraded to the new dashboard.

Do you know if service area businesses will be upgraded to the new dashboard? Do you have any clients that are home based or a plumber that have the new dashboard?

Thanks!
Susan

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi Susan,

Great news for you!

I have started to notice this for several of our clients as well

We have an SAB (Tree Trimmer) who has had their dash upgraded as well

 

[Linda Buquet]

Congrats Susan. They finally got to you!

We just had a carpet cleaner yesterday that just got the new dash too. (Down in help forum.)

FYI he made the mistake of trying the one button upgrade as soon as he got the new dash.

Want to be sure you know that you should not use that option. Did you hear Google is auto-upgrading everyone and you should wait for it???

 

[Colan Nielsen]

FYI he made the mistake of trying the one button upgrade as soon as he got the new dash.

Want to be sure you know that you should not use that option. Did you hear Google is auto-upgrading everyone and you should wait for it???

Hi Linda,

I know I read this, but wasn't sure. Has Google said to hold-off on doing the auto-upgrade with the G+ widget in the new dashboard?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Colan,

Maybe I was being overly cautious and read some Google comments too strictly.

You know how with Google sometimes if you act too fast, mid rollout, then the final version comes out and you realize you should have waited because the way you THOUGHT you should do it at the time ended up not being the best way and you have to untangle and try to fix it???

I just read Jade's comment again and I guess she is not saying wait don't use the new dash option.

BUT trying to read between the lines I read this: "If the listing for your business is not automatically upgraded and you are interested in social features, you may be able to use the Google+ widget to upgrade the page manually."

As this: ""If the listing for your business is not automatically upgraded and you really can't stand to wait and insist on pushing it you can TRY to use the Google+ widget to upgrade the page manually. Just be sure you jump through the following hoops."

Think like Google who does not spell things out. Read Jade's quote between the lines. Google Begins Auto-Upgrade of G+ Local Listings to Google+ Business Pages Granted I may just be paranoid.
But for good reason, based on past history with new updates and features, no?

So again, maybe I was being to cautious. For someone like you Colan that really knows what you are doing I say go for it. But there is always a chance that when the final upgrade is over and done Google will say, "sorry you are having XYZ problem, I think that happened because you used the widget and the auto-upgrade ended up bypassing that issue."

But for the average business owner, I say if they don't already have a G+ page they probably are NOT early adopters and NOT that into social, so why push it? Why risk maybe hitting bugs or having to do the extra steps? The widget is still a new option and we know new G options have bugs. I say just wait for it.
(Unless you are Colan.)

 

[Susan Walsh]

Hi Colan,

That's great to hear that service area businesses are getting upgraded too!

We seem to have more clients that work out of home offices and visit the clients, like we do, sometimes clients will come to on of our home offices. We have a couple of plumbers (competitive market here in MA) and construction company we are waiting to see upgraded.

Thank you!
Susan

 

[Susan Walsh]

Hi Linda,

Thanks for all this information on the widget. We have not done anything with that... thank goodness. One of our clients that is upgraded has never had an issue with Google Places or when it became Google+ Local. Everything has always worked. Although he doesn't want a new Website or us to go in and do his "title tags', meta description, etc." he comes up in his local area number 1 for many of his major terms. He had a lot of citations 2 years ago that we went in and claimed and optimized about 30 of the top ones. We will wait for Google to do it on this one.

I'm hoping that the elSue listing will be upgraded soon (that's ours). Most of our photos are gone, they kept one, but we didn't bother to go back and put more in because they take so long to update and we thought we'd wait for the new dashboard and do everything at once. We have a business page that we use all the time - internally we use the Hangout feature for our meetings and troubleshooting because you can share the screen - it's the feature that really makes G+ great and it always works.

Thanks for your advice - I'll go read what happened on the Forum and what Jade had to say.

Susan

By the way, we are loving the Inside Local Webinars - if I can't attend I get the replay. The citation and review Webinars were outstanding! I just signed up for the next four - can't wait.