These new pages — called Google+ Local — will offer users a new way to share their reviews via their Google+ page, as well as make the Google Places listings more indexable, and give users the benefit of seeing more ratings and reviews from other sites (Zagat, Yelp, etc.).

Just one look at Google+ Local, and you can see that this is a major improvement.

With all these changes some questions come to mind:

1. Where do I sign up, and how do I manage my page? The good news is that you will still manage your listings (for now at least) through your standard Google Places account. You can create any new listings via the Google+ local interface. Just go to plus.google.com, create an account if you don’t already have one, and on the left side bar, there is an option called pages. Once you select pages, there is a button that says create new page. Select Local and you’re ready to begin creating your new listing.
2. Does this mean my Places Page is gone? Yes and No. Your Places Page has been converted to a Google+ Local page. Google said in a recent statement that it had already converted over 80 million Places Pages to Google+ Local Pages.
3. What if I already had a Google+ page? For the time being, you will have both a Google+ Local and a Places Page. In the coming weeks/months Google has said they will be releasing options and tools to help you merge the two.
4. What happens to my reviews? Will they be migrated over to Google+? Sort of. As of right now, any reviews that your business has on Places have been migrated, but they will from now on say “A Google User” instead of the person’s nickname. Here is where the “sort of” comes in. Now, each Google user will be prompted to do a few things. First, they have to make a Google+ account. Then, they have to approve those comments being converted to their Google+ page. If they don’t convert them, they get removed. From here on in, all comments will have to be associated with a person’s Google+ page. This is both good and bad. The good news is that no more “anonymous” comments (from competitors perhaps?), or from people just trying to raise a ruckus, can appear. The bad news is that some users will not want to comment negatively about some types of businesses for fear of retribution, which is bad for the community at large.
5. I have my Google+ Local and my Google+ Business Page on two separate accounts, what do I do? Google is working to release tools to help you merge your Local and Business Pages. Stay tuned. In the mean time, continue to manage them separately.
6. But I can still see my Places page, and there is no review button, what gives? What you are seeing is your old Places page that hasn’t been migrated yet. Give it time. The review button has been removed in anticipation of the migration.
7. Are there any SEO implications for this? DEFINITELY. This change makes a big difference to how you market your business. Google Places content was not indexed, whereas Google+ Local is completely indexed and can be optimized in the search engines for positioning on branded and non-branded keywords. This opens up the opportunity to further optimize your search and social campaigns.
8. I have over 200 Google Places listings, does this mean I will have to have a Google+ page for every one?!?! No. Google has recently announced that the Bulk Upload features available in the Places interface have been updated. You should continue to use that as normal. In the coming weeks, Google will be releasing an update to Google+ Local to merge your Business page with your Google+ Local listings. Google is very conscious about the needs of larger brands with multiple locations, and will definitely be building tools to help brand managers and marketers deal with this transition.
9. How do I claim my listings? The claim process still hasn’t changed, either post card or phone call for now.
10. Will this fix my duplicate listing issues? Sadly, No. You will still need to report duplicate issues via the troubleshooter tool.
11. My “owner verified listing” designation is gone, and in its place there is a box that says “is this your listing?”  Don’t worry, this is a known issue and will be resolved ASAP.

How do you begin optimizing your new Google+ Local page?

• · If you haven’t already, go and claim both your Google+ Business page, and Google+ Local pages. Participating on both pages until the merger occurs will be important to not only help you start the process, but also will help ensure your presence stays consistent.

• · Link to your new Google+ Local page from your website. Remember, the Google search algorithm loves social involvement.

• · Setup your own Google+ account. The best way to help yourself in social media is participation. Creating your account is step one

• · Connect with people and Share your Google+ Local Page. After you have created your Google+ account, be sure to look for and connect with your friends. You can even automatically connect with all your friends in gmail, or invite them to join the conversation as well. Of course, once you have connected with them, you will want to share your Google+ Local page.

Welcome feedback from the Google+ community. The amount of reviews and frequency of reviews only assists your SEO efforts and rankings across the local listings

The reality of this area is that it was desecrated a few years back with bad SEO tactics, article spinning and affiliates gone mad. Back then the space was littered with international sites all vying to get paid via AdSense and accepting anything that was in English. This has all changed.

The article space has changed drastically with self-policing and Google Darwinism. Google Darwinism is when Google makes a change to their algorithm and you either change with it or die. In many cases sites such as dixads.com and Freeclon.com have died. They died a quick death, either putting the site up for sale or getting copyright infringement notices. Well, these sites were awful anyway, thanks Google.

Now on the other hand article sites that actually had a business and were trying to provide value on the web, maybe be the next Demand Media? They were in a war room, revamping the site and purging bad articles that had seeped onto their site over the previous years. The outcome was a renewed and revamped space that helped the web with original, quality content made for the human eye.

The space today is very different because article sites now have filters on the site.

It is very different because they review the content.

It is very different because they reward those who submit often and submit quality.

It is very different because these sites actually care about their readers and their authors.

It is very different because now, as it once was, great content creation and distribution on article sites is rewarded in SEO.

We believe article marketing is not the end all be all of SEO. In fact, we say the opposite. Article marketing is a starting point or perhaps a single in baseball terms. It helps you get in the game but it is only part of a winning strategy. To win you need to diversify your off page SEO portfolio with directories, guest blogging, PR releases, PDF site, social bookmarking, social buzz and other tools to show Google that you are relevant in the space.

We understand the hesitation by the panel because often times things are taken out of context but we also know that if you were to ask 20 people at this very same conference (which we did) about article marketing they all would say, “Yes, it has a place, just don’t muck it up with bad content.”

Like all the other times there’s a Panda update (if you didn’t know, Panda goes back to February 2011—here’s a pretty cool infographic Panda timeline to get you up to speed), the “experts” once again have article marketing in their crosshairs, ready to declare it “old school” once again.

Why pick on article marketing in times like these? Because article marketing, like every other marketing tactic out there, has some shady characters that give it a bad name in some circles. And an algorithm update is a convenient time to start making predictions about who’s going to get the hammer this time from Google.

Google still looks for links

Yes, “social signals,” the internet marketing buzzword we’ll all be muttering incoherently soon, have some value. They will eventually count for something with the search engines. But social signals are easier to manipulate than websites, and there’s no definitive way to measure them—so don’t count on them to supplant links anytime soon. Matt Cutts, Google’s chief spam fighter, emphasized the continuing value in links at SMX just last month, and word is he made similar comments at SES San Francisco just days ago.

We’ve been talking about Panda for over a year now. Its focus has been to penalize sites with thin, stolen, or duplicate content; sites with poor content; and sites with high ads-to-content ratios. Basically, Google just wants to cut the junk out of the web so they can serve users the content they are looking for.

Know the Difference – There’s good article marketing and there’s lazy article marketing

It would nice if people got the message that shortcuts don’t work, but someone’s always going to throw up a wafer-thin website, slam a few keywords in it, and build some inbound links with spun articles. This is precisely the issue Google is trying to fight with their updates and those who are taking shortcuts are being hit hard by these updates.

With some time and effort, you can benefit from a sound article marketing strategy that supports your website’s overall content marketing strategy.

Good article marketing characteristics include:

• Original, keyword-relevant content written by a human who is a native-language speaker in your market
• Article partner sites that are concerned with the quality of article submissions
• Content that has true value for the reader

Article marketing you should avoid:

• Article spinners (taking an existing article and rewording, or “spinning,” it)
• Article sites that have little value and run lots of ads
• Keyword-stuffed articles

Article marketing isn’t going away

Given Matt Cutts’ comments and Google’s position on creating useful content, there is no end in sight for article marketing. The good news with Panda 3.9 and future releases is that the sub-standard marketers and black hatters will get shut out of the game. Those marketers who produce high-value content with the consumer in mind will continue to be rewarded and see positive results.

We’re interested in your take on this subject. How do you feel about article marketing?