Google Places - Maintaining Control???

Russell,
Sort of along the lines you are. I wondered myself if the best way was to setup the places accounts under your own account or create the customers their own account. I assume this is along the lines you are talking about.

In my mind I would have thought the places account should be created under the customers own details. I would worry having control over an account if they were to later break any tos on their website.... could it affect my own account if it was listed under mine?

Having said that its a pain chasing customers for login details if you need to tweak or edit their places listing change opening times etc.

Regarding reviews I recall some lengthy debate about whether it was right to submit your own reviews, even if they were submitted by genuine customers and you were just doing the leg work typing on their behalf. Big G would be able to tell the review was not submitted by an end customer I would have thought but how would it know it was not a bogus 'seo' focused review or a genuine one. I was looking at the reviews placed on a competitor places listing of one of my clients and the reviews were all blatantly fake, name such as A N User etc.
Perhaps I am missing out but I have never submitted a review for a client just in case I am on the unwanted receiving end of some delistings!
I thought a third party review could be commented on by the business owner but not deleted.
VBR,
Shane

Since a Google Place listing is for an individual business, I am wondering how you could give it to another business?

I mean if it was for Bill's BBQ, you can't just sell it to Mary's BBQ as that wouldn't make much sense.

If it was a "general" web site about BBQ food in the area though, that could easily be changed. But a Google Places listing is for an individual business.

Unless you are trying to game Google with a semi-fake, general category listing. If so, then you would have a lot more to worry about.

You should not even bother trying to "give a google places listing to another customer". You have to redo all your citation work that is attached to that listing. Just create a new account for the new customer, you shouldn't bother trying to convert one of your old ones over, just delete it.

Regarding reviews, the best way to handle reviews is to syndicate them to other sites and have Google scrape them into your listing. I agree that there are many companies that post a bunch of bogus or "certified" reviews that are crap. However, this really shouldn't matter too much since they are easy to pass up. Reviews do not equal rankings. We have often placed clients above these types of listings even when they outnumber the reviews' section by 50-100 reviews. You won't be able to delete bad or crap reviews but you can bury them if you get the business to help you with collecting them.

Also, I am curious why you are having customers cancelling on you? It may have more to do with how/what you are pitching them. We have our customers all on a contact for a year then month to month, with a very easy exit of 30 days plus one month and don't have issues with retention at all. Since most of your work is not even fully realized/indexed/syndicated by third parties until 60 days, I hope that you have clients get on board for at least that long. If not, you are working yourself to death trying to rank, then rinse and repeat with new people.

Hope this helps a bit. If you get tired of it and want someone to handle if for you, let us know.

Thanks all

Much appreciated. Glad I asked =)

I've decided you're all correct, and I'm not going to proceed any further with this idea.

@localD - Thanks for the advice. I'm not having clients cancel though, I was merely looking for a way to provide a monthly option for clients that can't afford the service yearly, and still maintain control. By the way... I LOVE your "Bury It" idea! Great stuff

With a regular website in the good old organic searches, you could easily redirect all the traffic to a new client, should your previous client stop paying you...

@brent I like your referral twist. Great idea just in case. Thanks

But you're all right, with Places, it really is tied to the actual business. And though I have thought of ways to handle this, it really isn't time conducive. I think I got so caught up in figuring out a way to make it work, that i lost the simple fact that it is indeed, tied to the business.

@mollusc I don't care what google says (OK, yeah i do...), i don't think there's anything wrong with posting the reviews for a customer, but as you said, it may make google think they are fake if you're posting 100 reviews for an California dentist if you're in Detroit.

As long as the reviews are real, I see no harm in posting the reviews for your clients. You just have to make sure that they're coming from different IP's, are not done ALL at once, are not ONLY posted to one site, and preferably you want them to be coming from the area the business is in.

Also, it's a good idea to get a consent from for you to post it, along with the testimonial.

Thanks again all

Russell =P