Your Dental Practice Google+ Local Page Is Now Managed Via Google My Business

Google My Business Update To Local Plus Pages

 
Google+ Local, Google Places, Google Maps…why can’t dental practice owners simply have one unified dashboard to manage their presence across all of Google?

According to Google…Now you can!
 

 
Google is now in the process of updating all Google+ (and Google+ Local) pages to what will now don the moniker of “Google My Business.” This updated interface will act as a unified dashboard from which to manage your dental practice page(s) and listing(s).

Let’s hope this one sticks, is bug free, easier to manager for business owners, and helps clean up the spammy listings polluting the local search ecosystem.

Remember, you can have both a Google+ Business page AND a Google+ Local page…even more for individual practitioners. The main difference is the +Local pages display the practice info, contact details, and reviews (and links to other citations around the internet – sites that list your reviews) on the search engine results pages. Whereas the Google+ Business (or Brand) page is a social spin-off – like a Facebook page, from which you can post, share, hangout…etc.

Most dental practices really only need a verified, controlled, and correctly categorized + Local page.
 

Google My Business Update To Local Plus Pages

 
Sometimes it’s difficult for dentists (or any local business owner) to keep up with all of the Google updates and enhancements they have released – particularly over the last year or two.

Remember when you were worried about how Zagat ratings would affect your dental practice?

This latest Google My Business update brings us a complete re-branding and re-design of what was the local social interface formerly known as the Google Places for Business…or the Google+ dashboard.

“Google Places for Business” (or “Google+ Local”) will now officially be known as “Google My Business” or “GMB” for short.

These GMB updates present dentists and local business owners yet another dashboard from which to manage their practice presence on Google+. Since this new dashboard will replace all others – in time, Google just released the updates – this should hopefully lead to less confusion in managing the page and result in fewer duplicate listing issues.

They are still in the process of upgrading all users to the Google My Business dashboard. If you are still seeing the Places for Business or Google+ dashboard for your dental practice listing, you will be upgraded soon.

As Google states in their support forum:

“Google My Business makes it simpler than ever to make sure your local business information can be easily found across Google, including on Google Maps, Google Search, and Google+.”

The post goes on to point out the significant differences between the old dashboards (Google+ & Google Places for Business), and the new Google My Business interface.
 

Latest Google My Business Dashboard

 

 

 
If you previously managed your dental practice information through the latest Places for Business dashboard, much of Google My Business will look familiar.

With Google My Business, dentists will still have an easy way to update your business information regularly so that Google users find the latest information about your business. In addition, you’ll be able to:

• Share updates with your Google+ followers
• See insights on how Google+ users have interacted with your page

Once you’ve verified your page, you’ll also be able to:

• See insights on how users find your business information on Google
• Read customer feedback from across the web in one place and respond to your customers’ reviews on Google.
• Start and monitor AdWords Express campaign performance directly from your dashboard.

 

The Original Google Places for Business Dashboard

 
If you’ve been upgraded directly from the original Places for Business dashboard – which looked like this:
 

 
Google wants you to know about these differences – here they are straight from the horse’s mouth:

• You can now upload more photos, and you can write a longer introduction for your business.
• If Google Maps has different information than what you’ve input in your dashboard, your new dashboard will now be updated with the Maps information. Things that might be different include your address, website, or categories.
• We no longer support custom categories. We want to give users the clearest information about your business and other businesses on Maps, so we ask you to choose from the categories available to you in the dashboard.
• The “payment options” and “additional details” fields no longer appear and the data will not be transferred in your upgrade to the new dashboard.
• The “videos” field no longer appears in the dashboard. You can share videos by posting from your Google+ page.

There are a couple changes specific to certain businesses in the new dashboard:

• If you’d like to publish a business that you’d previously asked to be removed from Google Maps, you’ll need to verify it again. Once you verify, we may update the business with the information you provided. Learn more about the verification process.
• When you first access the new dashboard, we may ask you to review the information we have for your business. Please make any necessary changes and click Done Editing so that we can continue to display your up-to-date business information on Google.

The Now Being Phased Out Google+ Dashboard