Google Places, Plus, and National Service

[WineCellarInnovations]

I'm attempting to dive into the Google Places and Google + Local mess.

First off, we are a company that services nationally. Our installer manager travels worldwide however in 15+ areas we have local sales and/or installers that service customers locally. There is no business storefront, rather they work out of their home and travel around their local area (100+ miles). Our main office is a storefront and we do service clients at our store, plus travel locally and nationally, as I mentioned.

#1) Can I (should I) create separate listings for each of these installers? They are independent contractors... Use their local phone number and residential home address? Put somehow put our main 800 number as the secondary number along with our main website address?

Or, should we try the bulk upload feature of 'stores' and attach them to our name and website address?

#2) Our Places address is under our Marketing Director's login through Google. We have most everything else under another email address which includes our Google Plus Business page, AdWords, Merchant account, etc.

Should I go back and claim the Places page through our main email account, and then merge the Places account with our Google Plus page?

#3) Currently our Places page says we serve all 50 states. Should I try to keep that the same (I don't think you can select 'states' for the areas you service anymore, or can you?) or should I move to our local installers in our 15+ and growing areas?

I've been reading through past Google Places discussions here and I've been trying to find out more about the bulk upload feature to see if it would work but I'm getting stumped.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Kristi,

1. If you choose to create local listings for each of your installers, then, yes, you would have to use their home address and local area code phone number (I do not recommend putting your 800 number on your listing even as the second phone number). You would then need to choose the hide address feature in creating each of the listings, because employees are going to customers rather than customers coming to the employees' home. Do not overlook this step, or the listings are likely to be yanked. Honestly, if you can avoid the bulk upload feature, I would. I'd do this individually.

2. Google will eventually merge the + and Place pages. Recommend you study this article regarding the category selected when you created the + page to see if you are eligible for a manual merge request or if you need to wait (http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/06/08/google-for-business-places-forums-wrapup/). Also recommend you read: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/08/03/google-business-and-local-merge-process-is-now-live/. Because you are dealing with what is essentially a multi-location business (like a franchise) Google has not yet announced a solution/intentions regarding how it will handle this type of business.

3. Where does your Place Page say you serve all 50 states? The description? Can you please provide a little more detail.

Don't feel badly about being stumped. The changes have made everybody's head spin! Mine, too!

Miriam