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Earlier this week, Google invited 75 of its top Local Guides from many corners of the world, to an all-expenses-paid summit at its headquarters in Los Angeles. According to Business Insider, these individuals ranged from a disabilities advocate in the Dominican Republic through to a Tunisian woman on a mission to bolster tourism to her country. All were there to share their local stories and offer Google Maps engineers and product managers their insights and ideas.<\/p>\n
The attendees represented just a small proportion of the five million people who currently make up the Guides programme, yet have between then made 330,000 user-generated contributions, including 5,000 entirely new places added on Maps (source: Business Insider). Their dedication is of utmost importance to Google, and Jen Fitzpatrick, the exec who leads Maps, told them:<\/p>\n
“Our ultimate aspiration is to build the richest, deepest, most detailed understanding of the real world that\u2019s ever existed and to share that back to our users. You are the community that\u2019s helping us build that understanding.”<\/p>\n
\u201cLocal search\u201d is a phrase that\u2019s been on the tip of every marketer\u2019s tongue in 2016, and innovation from Google within this space has been so fierce it\u2019s been tricky to keep track of. We\u2019ve written about many of these updates by Google on the blog this year, including the launch of Promoted Pins and Promoted Locations<\/a>, expanded product pages<\/a> and local inventory ads.<\/p>\n Google Places listings, for example, have become of utmost importance, as they\u2019re an intrinsic part of our daily lives. According to Google, 50% of those using local search will visit the store within a day. Having the most accurate local location data is now the silver bullet of marketing success for businesses and retailers particularly, as it closes the gap between search and the high street, enabling marketers to build that highly sought after single customer view. Google\u2019s biggest selling point to advertisers right now is that\u00a0its combination of search and maps data can show when its ads are actually driving people into businesses.<\/p>\n