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These last 3 days Google has done a lot to help confirm what most search marketers have been thinking for a long time, local marketing seems to be a large part of the future of Google (which in turn makes it a top priority for all who want to continue to succeed in search marketing).

This all really comes as no surprise to most folks, but they have really opened the gates this week, further cementing the fact that local marketing is here to stay.

Let’s take a quick look at how the last few days played over on the Google Local Places front:

• Tuesday, April 20th Google Announces that they are officially changing the name of the Google Local Business Center to Google Places.  Place pages were launched this past September and have become a very important part of the local marketing strategies of businesses large and small.Along with the  name change, Google also officially announced service areas.

  These have been around for a few weeks, but Google decided to make it official on Tuesday – most likely because it was noted to be rather buggy for the first week or so.  These service areas allow business owners to specify a geographic region for which they will travel to or conduct business in.  This should help many home based businesses and services that don’t necessarily depend on an office location like taxi services and tow trucks.

  

  Another part of National Weed Day at Google included an expansion They expanded the cities in which businesses can take part in the paid/sponsored local search listings dubbed “Tags“.  To date the following cities are able to participate: Austin, Atlanta,  Washington, D.C. , Houston and San Jose, CA.   They also announced that within a few weeks they will be introducing Tags in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco.
  

  
  In addition to all of this they announced Business Photo Shoots, customized QR codes through the Google Places dashboard and the rollout of another round of Favorite Places window decals.

• Wednesday, April 21stOn Wednesday, the Big G announced the integration of Google Buzz with Google Maps.  To enable it, the next time you are viewing a Google Map, select “Buzz” from the “more” menu in the top-right corner of the map.  This will allow a new layer to appear on the map displaying the geolocation of “buzzes”.  Awesome.
• Thursday, April 22ndThursday Google announced that they have added a search suggestion function to the search box on Google maps.  This operates essentially the same way as the suggestions that populate in the drop down box on a standard Google search do.  This may provide a few opportunities for clever marketers

Let’s see what Friday brings!