If you are not familiar with what Google Places is or how Google Plus can greatly improve your business marketing then you need to read this article!

To the picture in the (right) is the latest quote for the stock of Yellow Pages (the once premier location to attain local traffic) For years this yellow colored phone book company was used for everyday searching. Consumers and businesses would use this rolodex index to find what they were looking for…. That was until Google came along.

In the most recent years Google has introduced Local Places, and after some fine tuning it has officially been launched on the platform of Google Plus. Bringing the functionality of a complete local business directory and incorporating reviews and comments from the social world of Google Plus. To be listed in Google’s local business directory is free and to rank as the number one position in the search results can be accomplished as follows;

Contact PurewebResults to get your business found on Google

The first step into getting an accurate business listing in Google+ Local is to firstly claim it. Google and their brilliance has already populated their directory with information and address locations, scraped from the internet. So the bulk of the work is already done for you. I have personally contacted hundreds of local businesses within Barrie and Newmarket to help them verify their listing, and there are tens of thousands still out there.

The process is very simple, first if you do not already have one; create a Google Plus account
Once logged in, visit your google plus page, and click the `manage this page`as seen in the image aside.
If you do not have a listing begin here (link to Google form)

The next step to having a high ranking Google places listing is to fill it up! Fill out all sections of the business listing form that apply to you. It is proven that greater results occur when you include videos, multiple images and a website address.

Google Places Optimization

This is the most difficult part and is a service we offer here at PureWebResults. Choosing the keywords to target for your listing is crutial, you are telling Google what words and phrases you think your business should show up for.To maximize the effectiveness of your places listing you want to not only target keywords that drive traffic but also think about what people are looking for when they want your product.
We do the research for you, finding those high ticket keywords and seeking out which keywords your competition hasn’t thought of.

The next phase in optimizing a google places is what I call “stepping up to the plat,“ it is in this time where businesses have the chance to make an impact on how well their places listing succeeds. Your business needs to be seen as active in the community by Google, that includes having recent reviews on your listing, fresh updates to your website, and a web presence with mentions of your brand on multiple syndications. Having just pieces of the above will put you on your way to a higher ranking in google places, but a company with all the pieces will reside number 1

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The first feature allows administrators to force 2-step verification on users of the organization.  You can also monitor the opt-in logs via this new Security panel.  For those who don’t know, 2-step verification is an added layer of security that protects your account in case someone happens to steal your password.  Google will send you a text message or generate a code on your android app which you submit after logging into your account.  This means someone would have to steal your password AND your phone in order to get into your account.

Another security related update came to those using Microsoft Active Directory.  You can now synchronize and manage passwords with Google Apps when passwords are changed.  The passwords are of course hashed and encrypted during sync.

If you would like help deploying 2-step verification to your business feel free to give us a call.

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Really? Offline documents? How does that work?

Well, we often find ourselves taking our work to a place where we have no connection to wifi or the internet.  Up until now Apps users operating with an iOS device could not access their Google Drive or edit documents while offline.  So once you make changes to a file (offline) how do I get those changes to reflect to other users that have access to the document?  Once you reconnect your device, the files will automatically be synced in the cloud.

In Google Drive you can click the gear icon to enable offline access.  That being said, currently not all document types can be edited offline.  Only word files at the moment but Google hopes to soon release editing of Spreadsheets and Presentations.  You can find more information on how to activate offline storage in the Help Center.

With the Drive app, you can open PDFs, photos, videos, documents and anything else stored in your Drive while you’re on the go. You can also search all your files, add collaborators to documents, and make files available offline to view them even without an internet connection. For blind and low-vision users, the app also works great in VoiceOver mode. Learn more about what you can do with the app in our Help Center.

Muffin Group, muffingroup.com

Please visit the Apple App store or the Play store to download the latest version of the Drive App!  I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

To learn more about Google Drive, visit drive.google.com/start.

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