5 Things Local Businesses Need to Know about Google Hotpot

Last week, Google launched Hotpot: a new location-based recommendation engine powered by social media—more specifically, powered by the ratings and recommendations of Google users.

If you have a local business, here are five things you should know about Google Hotpot:

1. Tight integration with Google Places.

If you don’t currently have or maintain a Google Places (formerly Google Local Business Center) account, now is the time to get started. Your Google Places account gives you full control over your Google business listing that appears in Google’s Maps, search results, and of course, now in Hotpot. Google Places comes complete with a self-service dashboard that makes your listing easy to maintain; it even provides some useful analytics data, such as how many times users saw your listing in local search results.

Your Places listing is a public profile that includes business basics such as your address and phone number, but also more in-depth information like hours of operation, services, even photos and videos. In Hotpot, all of this data is front and center—especially the photos. Take control of your Google Places listing and make sure it’s as up to date and enhanced as it can be. Give people more of a reason to rate and recommend your business!

2. It’s not just for bars and restaurants!

Even though Google Hotpot may seem like it’s aimed at hip social scenes like bars and restaurants, it’s important to note that it’s meant for all Places, including local businesses of any type. Travel and tourism destinations will probably benefit most from Hotpot, but we’ve already seen ratings and reviews for less exciting places like the local dry cleaner.

3. Ratings and reviews are culled from around the web.

Hotpot pulls in ratings and reviews from a variety of sources around the web, including sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, Angie’s List, UrbanSpoon, InsiderPages, even blogs. Anywhere that your business has been ranked, rated or reviewed is fair game to appear in Hotpot. With such a robust aggregation of data, Google aims for Hotpot to become more of a destination for users who want to find out more information about local businesses.

4. It’s mobile meets social.

Mobile search is on the rise as smartphone usage continues to skyrocket. On-the-go users are eager to rate and review the places they love and get recommendations from friends. As mobile social networks continue to gain in popularity, expect services like Google Hotpot to follow suit.

5. Local search optimization is more important than ever.

Did you know one out of every 5 Google searches is related to location? It’s more important than ever to ensure your local website and business listings are optimized for local search. Local search optimization can help ensure your business is more visible where it matters most.

If you’d like to learn more about local search optimization and how Web Ad.vantage can help your business get more visibility, call us at (410) 942-0488 or submit and Online Request for Proposal.

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