Google+ Publishes Business Pages

Google announced today that they're opening the doors to businesses on their Google+ social network. Local business owners may or may not be aware of this budding social network. Earlier this year Google launched their third attempt at the Facebook killer, but at the time had no real way for businesses to create accounts. In July they suspended accounts of businesses that made use of personal profiles. There should be no fear of that happening now. Businesses can start setting up their Google Page listing as early as today. Be warned, this feature is being rolled out over the course of a few days. If you receive a message to try back later, come back in a day.

Google+ may not be where all your customers are right now, but it could be in the future. And playing around in new sandboxes can be fun, even for those new to online marketing. But, more importantly, it is a fair assumption that Google will work to integrate these Pages listings in a similar fashion to their Places listings in search results. Whether that's for exact match business searches or local broad service keywords remains to be seen.

The final point being: it's free and could produce some great results in the future, so setup your Google Page today.

About Jason Frye
Jason Frye is the Digital Marketing Consultant on the Digital Services team. Jason has been helping small businesses be successful online since 2000. He's the resident expert on search marketing. You can connect with Jason on Twitter @ng_digital or through the Digital Services Facebook Page. He writes about search, social media, and design practices as they affect small businesses.