Keeping some of the problems aside that Google had faced while integrating its product mixture and Zagat, it has been observed that GoogleÔÇÖs own marketing and brand problems in the Local space are in its record.The management interfaces of Google+ and Google places pageÔÇöincluding that of the Local to Maps to plain Google PlusÔÇöseem to have some interaction problems not only for users but also for elite class users.

This misguided exercise or haphazardness of different brands seem the same to those users, who donÔÇÖt notice it well and are not gadget geek in one way or the other. Anyhow, a large factor to the GoogleÔÇÖs discrepancy in its business owner engagement it its own poorly managed brands in Local.

For every small and average business owner, Google seem to be a little confusing. Most of the business owners do not even know how to start their business at Google. Most of the GoogleÔÇÖs online front desk supporters in different GoogleÔÇÖs support forums seem to have been paying their attention on ÔÇ£Places for Business,ÔÇØ most of the owners hate to have such kind of initial online interaction or impression to start their business.┬á Thus, this attitude not only lowers down the online business reputation but it is also a set-back to GoogleÔÇÖs main advertisement campaign or even AdWords. In most of the cases, it is hard to get main GoogleÔÇÖs business pages and searchesÔÇöincluding that of ÔÇ£Google Plus Local PageÔÇØÔÇöfor initial business owners to start off their career.

This looks awkward, as the Plus management interfaces donÔÇÖt comply with requirements of most of the initial users. While I was in favor of this strategy, there are some particular reasons for which I donÔÇÖt support or even suggest it to most of the newbie business owners. This is one of the main reasons why I have chosen places.google.com instead of the above-mentioned strategy.

The Deficits of the Google+ Page Management Interface

1.      Lacks User Interface Grading

This interface more likely gives an impression of modules used at Pinterest, containing mixed interfacing options for the users. If I were asked my own question that (ÔÇ£What am I supposed to look at?ÔÇØ), my answer would be similar for looking at a green box in the middle with a little tag on it saying, ÔÇ£Start a video call with your followers.ÔÇØ In my opinion, an average business owner would not be going to get benefited from it in any way to increase his or her commercial strength.

In addition, some of the top attributesÔÇöincluding categories, hours, location informationÔÇöthat play an important role to the overall growth of a business are hidden and are not clearly visible at the first sight to any business owner. This can cause serious harm to most of the newbie business starters to miss their core business strategies just for having a green giant in front of their screens. This is one of the main reasons that LinkedIn beats Google Plus for communal interaction.┬á

2. Poor Strategy for an Average SMB:

SMBs are pretty important for navigation and seem to have been lost if you have an overview of your site. Instead ofthis, you are more likely asked to install different website plugins, buttons, badges and most importantly, you are even offered to connect to the GoogleÔÇÖs API Console in a separate section of ÔÇ£Connected Services.ÔÇØ So, this overall strategy is for only 10% business owners only, because most of the owners and users do not even own a website and numerous do not have their own mobile website.┬á┬á

3. A little disingenuous Insights:

So what do you have in your ÔÇ£Insights.ÔÇØ You have followers, views ÔÇô for last 30 days, actions ÔÇô for last 30 days, and time since your last post. You are separately given information in the form of graphs for your views, actions and your posts for the last 30 days. The main problem with this page is the presentation more willingly than the data that has been represented on it. You have perfect presentation of your Actions and Views sections along with separate graphs; however, your section for viewing a post has been left incomplete. Therefore, you would actually be going to miss out your important posts and would have more concerns about your actions and views as a matter of fact.

4. No Assistance at all:

So, to learn more on how to proceed with your business, you need to first go into the settings tab and then click on ÔÇ£Learn More.ÔÇØ No additional assistance center or 24/7 online chat service is available for your big business start-ups.

The Strong Points of the Places Management Interface:

1. Perfect Messaging Option:

Well, there is something positive too on your Management interface. Users have a very attractive green-colored tab ÔÇ£Complete Your Business InformationÔÇØ along with a blue-colored ÔÇ£Edit InformationÔÇØ tab. The white-colored ÔÇ£Complete Your Business InformationÔÇØ gets green as soon as you fill in your complete information suing the blue-colored button. Another grayish-colored section saying ÔÇ£Add PhotoÔÇØ completely demonstrated the importance of your services and products.

2. Flawless targeting of the normal SMB

From the design of places interface, itÔÇÖs very much clear that designers have put all their efforts into designing this tab to make the owners realize the importance of their business. The main tools section has a small tooltips section, as well. Users can click on the question mark to check in the tooltips section. This not only reduces the time that a business owner will waste while interacting with GoogleÔÇÖs original help desk; nonetheless, it also clarifies some of the basic and most important questions, as well.

3. VibrantÔÇ£insightsÔÇØ Section:

So, what else do you want if you have such a crystal-clear interface for your daily insights? It includes impressions, actions, top-arch queries and directions for the last 30 days. It also shows the number of times this list have been in the search bars for the last 30 days. Therefore, Google has completed its homework here for bringing out a nice interface without complicating things for newbie business owners.

4. Awesome tool tips and aligned help text

Without going much into the details of business listings of an owner, the Places team has really worked hard to guide the owner with each and every important step of his or her business page creation. This is something really appreciable.

5. Phone support

And for sure, if any business owner fails to understand anything related to his/her business page, he/she have the freedom to go through the suggested articles for help. Moreover, GoogleÔÇÖs primary phone help service is always available for the business owner to get out of any kind of trouble.

Conclusion

Having seen that how much struggle and determination was required by small business owners to set-up and start a small business venture, Google places for business dashboard and plus management system have changed things around. Now, any small business owner can easily set-up and start his/her venture without much complication as he/she had to face before.

Originally Published in MOZ and Written by David Mihm