2013 - Google Places/Business to Google Plus Local

[Titan552]

Hi,

Much of the reading I've done has suggested that existing Google Places/Business Page (with "About" and "Photos" on top) will be automagically "upgraded" to Google Plus Local pages (with "About" and "Photos" and "Reviews" and all the other Google Plus items).

However, is there a way to force an upgrade?  I have a Google Places/Business Page and when I go to "manage page" it basically wants me to create a separate Google + Page for the Business.  Is this the correct thing to do?  Do I need to create a Google + Page for the company first, and then try to merge the Places listing with the new Google + Page for the business?

Thank your for helping me clear this up!

[RobertFisher]

Titan,

I am going to give you a suggestion before I answer your question; if you fill out a bit of the info on your Moz profile it will help people understand about what your business is in cases where they might need that info to help you.

Next, with your business and the new merge of google business + with social (best descriptor I have found), if you have a service area business currently, you will not be able to do a merge. Full disclosure is that I am not able to find anything about this for you to link to and it came from our head of Local who talks with some of the top Google contributors for local. I suggest you check out Linda Buquet's posts and Mike Blumenthal if you haven't yet. Mike has localu.org and this post has some good back and forth that follow it.

If you have a physical location where customers come in to do business with you, you should be able to create a G+ page using the same email address and then force the merge. If this does not answer fully for you, let me know and I will give you clear directions on how. It appears you have already done some reading and the only thing you need is a G+ page.

Best