Local Busniess Center becomes Google Places

The Local Business Center is becoming Google Places. The reason - Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages — the way that businesses are being found today — with the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google.

Google is also adding some new features:-

• Show your service coverage or hide your address.
• Tag Ads added to Austin, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. and to follow in Chicago, San Diego, Seattle, Boulder and San Francisco
• Free business photo shoots service to enhace the profile.
• Customised QR codes from the Places dashboard.
• Running another batch of Favorite places.

To keep track of how your business listing is performing on Google, we offer a personalized dashboard within Google Places that includes data about how many times people have found your business on Google, what keywords they used to find it and even what areas people traveled from to visit your business. With the dashboard, you can see how your use of any of these new features affects interest in your business and make more informed decisions about how to be found on Google and interact with your customers.

As a SEO Consultant working for more than 6 years, I believe that this has more oppurtunities in the future.