Google Tags
For only 25 bucks a months, this will be worth every penny and more. It simply a yellow icon Google puts next to your Google Map (or Places) Listing. If someone searches for a “used car dealership” 8 – 10 map listings will appear. Google decides what to show the searcher based on their IP address.
This little yellow tag will make your listing stand out from the others, which will generate more clicks. If you look at the screenshot below, only one car dealer in that area is using it. Why you ask? Car Dealers are about 5 years behind, so the savvy ones can reap the benefits way before everyone else starts doing it. If you have a brick and mortar business, you need to be here.
This Little Yellow Tag Will Make You Stand Out For $25.00 Per Month
Google Boost
I found Google Boost by accident last week when I was poking around my map listings. After doing a bit of research, it appears that Google started this in October of 2010, offering it to only 3 different cities including San Francisco. It is now available in Florida and Illinois, I guess the other states have to wait.
Basically, it’s like a Pay Per Click only the ads appear in the map section during Google searches when your city and business type is mentioned. If you look at the search above the term was “used cars”.
What I am liking best is the stats Google provides us:
This Is Based On The Last 7 Days
Interesting stuff here. This business showed up over 4,375 times in the past 7 days. 69 people clicked it, and it cost me $35.69. Besides that, it shows me the top eight keywords. This enables me to know how many people are searching in my area.
Another stat they provide contradicts these numbers:
Top Search Queries In My Area
They said in the other image that I had 4,375 impressions, but these numbers only add up to 800. Either way, I can see more keywords my adds are showing up on. They have a service department, so it’s great to see “oil change” and tires giving me impressions. Google used to give us a maximum of 5 categories to be listed under. Now they are looking at our website’s content and deciding what else to put us under. I really wish I knew where the 341 “other” impressions came from.
Luckily I can go deeper in my Google Adwords Account:
A Very Nice List Of Keywords
I received impressions from 3,291 Different Google searches in my immediate area. This is a far cry from the 5 Google used to give us.
If you want to start using Google Boost simply log in to your Google Places Account and you can see if it’s available in your state. That and a Google Adwords Account is all you need. You can get the tag as well in the same place.
I think this feature will put all of those black hat map listing companies out of business 
