Google+ Business Profile, Places, Company, or Brand

[ilyaelbert]

We have a company with 2 offices, 1 on each coast. I was wondering what would be the best way to create a google+ business page for this to maximize them? We'd like to show a nationwide presence with 2 offices. Are there any downsides to picking any 1 of these?

To clarify, there are 3 choices: local business, brand, and company. Which of the 3 would you recommend for a company with a nationwide presence and 2 offices?

[blacey]

Personally I would have a single Google+ account for your business (with a link from both sites going to the same profile). You could then add each of your offices to Google Places as separate entities, to target the different areas.

You could list them on Google Places as:

<company name=""><street>, East Coast</street>
<state>,</state></company>

<company name=""><street>, West Coast
<state>,</state></street></company>

As far as what type of profile you choose I can't really comment on the differences between a local business page compared with a company page. To me 'Company, institution, or Organization' would be a single world-wide entity, whereas a 'Local Business or Place' would be a business with a single shop or a place of interest.

I would say that after a good 30 minutes of looking around on the Internet and Google help pages its a bit unclear as to what the difference is between the profile types, but I hope this helps.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Ilya,

This is the first time I've had this question come up, and unfortunately, Google+ for businesses is still so new-ish that I can't find any convincing documentation that speaks to the benefits/drawbacks of opting for any of the 3 different categories you've cited.

My belief is that you would be best to go with the Local Business category, especially if you are taking advantage of Google Places for your business model, but I need to be clear that this is based on my early opinions on this and not on any sources I can cite or data that has been aggregated. Sounds like good material for a blog post!

I will leave this thread as 'unanswered' in case any of our members have a different opinion to share. So far, in Local, every local business I've worked with or heard about is choosing the Local category...but you may have some other reasons specifically relating to your company that would pull you towards choosing one of the other options. Without knowing more about your business model, and without more documentation on this topic to study, I think we're all making those early-days type of decisions right now with Google+

Miriam

[mediabase]

Hi Llya, As you mentioned in the question that you have a company  with 2 offices. SO It would be better to choose a category of Company, Institution & organization.

I would like to recommend you the company category because Local Business or Place is for hotels, restaurants,places, etc & Products or brands is for apparel, cars, electronics and financial services.

Thanks

[blacey]

Is there a way to change your google+ profile type after the profile has been created? So change from a local business to a company/institution/organization page?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Ben,

According to this article, you can't change the category once you've set it:

http://blog.cdginteractive.com/my_weblog/2011/12/5-things-to-know-about-google-pages-for-businesses.html

Good question, BTW.

Miriam

[blacey]

I would have thought Google would have allowed you to change it. What if you stopped being a local business and grew to be international, surely you would want to change your profile type from 'Local business' to 'Company, Institute or Organization'.

Are Google assuming then, that companies will only ever be one type of business? Seems a little short sighted to me.

[giantpeach]

Try a local business page for each site and one company or brand one to cover general company things that aren't specific to each office.

[MiriamEllis]

True, Ben. Well...you know Google...they change their policies frequently, so this might change at some point, too.  If they handle + at all the same way that they've handled Places, changes are certain to happen in their guidelines and policies over the years.

[blacey]

This is what I said in my post, was I not clear enough?

"Personally I would have a single Google+ account for your business"

"You could then add each of your offices to Google Places as separate entities, to target the different areas"