How Google's Local Guides Impact Your Local Web Visibility

Google Maps allows its users to describe the places they have visited. The most engaged see a badge displayed on their profile picture as well as the designation Local Guide under their name. In the end these are millions of potential consumers who rely on these contributions to choose their favorite establishments or activities, thus providing a visibility that is not negligible for the various points of sale...

Contributions in Google Maps

Users and Local Guides can:

• Publish reviews and photos.
• Answer questions about the places you've visited.
• Report certain errors regarding a location: permanently closed, non-existent, relocated, incorrect name/address, incorrect marker location, etc.
• Add a missing address on the map.
• The Beta version of Google Maps even offers "missions" to add missing information about nearby places or validate information suggested by other contributors.

How to have qualitative and positive feedback?

L'optimization of the customer experience at the point of sale and the implementation of a communication encouraging to publish data on Google is a first step.

Next, your establishments must be quickly visible on the web, so it is necessary to optimize your local SEO.

Benefits for retailers, contributors, and consumers

This sharing system brings value to each entity:

1. A continuous flow of valuable information about your establishment, for you and your customers.
2. The users are confident and move more willingly thanks to the published evaluations, photos and data in real time broadcast by the application.  
3. Contributors earn points from the first action and benefit from advantages by registering with the Local Guide community, some of which directly impact businesses: - Participation in events hosted by Google (official) or Meetup (unofficial). On these occasions, users are brought together in a city, follow a theme (example: gastronomic discovery) and share their experiences.
4. - Tips for taking high-quality panoramic photos and writing useful reviews.

User and Local Guide contributions that may not seem directly relevant to you can also have an impact: a point of sale located near a park, with beautiful photos and good reviews on Google Maps, attractive therefore, will likely be visited by some walkers.

In the end, the possibilities for activating consumers are multiple and make the Local Guides program a real asset for your Web-To-Store strategy.