Google Plus Business (How to replicate categories from Places)- Advanced

[mgordon]

I'm very familiar with local promotion.  However, I work in some fairly competitive local markets and in most cases only a few dominant keywords are necessary for the client to perform well.

With new clients who aren't grandfathered into the old places interface, I cannot setup custom categories.  This is known to everyone, but what I would REALLY appreciate is if someone could explain how I can at least to some degree replicate that targeting?

To put it in perspective, for the standard categories (through Google Plus Business) my client rank very well; thus you can assume the client's local strength is solid; but when it comes to the few specific terms I need, I can't see to replicate the effect.

Please help... anyone!

[mgordon]

Hello Miriam,

Thank you for your feedback.  I was not aware of item number one and I'll look into it.  In the meantime I'm trying to get an understanding of the factors which can replicate the effect of "custom categories" for new clients who I don't have the old Google Places interface for and could really use the effect of custom categories.

As to your point on number three; I have done some testing and from what I can tell there is little or no value from the description field (probably because it would be too easy to spam).

I do see some competitors ranking with the new Google Plus Business accounts even against others that have categories so I think there has to be a way to do it... I just don't know how.

Thanks

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Chris,

Mgordon is actually correct - Google's custom categories are on their way out and do not exist in the new Google+ Local dashboard. You might want to look into this further in case it will affect any of your clients.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Mgordon,

Google is completely doing away with custom categories, and I have come across other threads with business owners expressing concern that their most important categories do not exist in the new pre-set category taxonomy. There are three thoughts I can share with you on this.

1. I have heard talk that Google may be open to hearing requests for additional categories to be added. When/how this will happen, I don't know, but here's a thread in the Google And Your Business Help Forum which mentions this possibility: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/custom$20categories/business/A3zjPqFi6C8/LVjo_aOBxq8J

You might want to do some more searching around the Google forum in case there was a discussion of this I happened to miss. Google staffers do sometimes start threads to address concerns like these, but the custom categories are definitely going away, so they can't be part of your marketing strategy.

2. Have you used Mike Blumenthal's category tool to check for synonyms that may trigger an appropriate new category for you? Here's the link:

http://blumenthals.com/Google_LBC_Categories

3. You can, of course, mention those lost categories in the business description field of the Google+ Local page, but it's my opinion that Google has devalued this area of the page to some extent and I don't know what effect, if any, it has on influencing rank at this point.

Sorry not to have a solution here. I do suggest searching around Google's forum for more discussions started by people finding themselves in your same situation with the new category system.

[GPainter]

Hello,

Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick (correct me if so) you want to set up some custom categories in Google local?

You can still do this here - <cite class="vurls">www.google.com/local/add/businessCenter</cite>‎

obviously the custom categories will change the way you rank in a local area so I'll leave it to you and research to find the best one's but it can be good for telling Google this local business does this e.g

bookshop that sells special books

categorizes in :

antique books

Google have changed the names up but Google local is now Google places etc.

I hope that helps.

etc.