Next Stop: San Diego, California

(Cross-posted on the Google Places Blog.)

Every day, more and more users are looking online for local information — where to eat, where to stay, where to shop. Online is where business owners need to be too. So for the past several months, we’ve launched marketing campaigns promoting our core local product offering Google Places in five cities: Portland, Austin, Las Vegas, Madison and Charlotte. In each of these cities, we’ve been working closely with local business owners, showing them how Google Places can help them get found on Google and connect them with their customers.

We’re excited to announce that the next campaign is hitting San Diego, California, today — our largest city to date!

With more than 77,000 local businesses, San Diego is the perfect next city in our campaign to help local businesses get noticed on Google. Plus, with nearly three million residents and more than 30 million tourists visiting the city annually, we see a great opportunity to help locals and tourists alike share and discover great San Diego businesses online.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be working with business owners in a bunch of ways:

• A team of Google reps will be visiting businesses with information about how to claim their Place page and keep their information up to date. They’ll also highlight how business owners can encourage their customers to rate and review their business on Google and share those recommendations with their friends.
• Business owners who have verified their free Place page can request a Google Places starter kit. Visit googleplacescatalog.com for more information. Part of this kit is our “Recommended on Google” sticker, which utilizes NFC technology to enable users with smartphones, such as the Nexus S, to see more information about that business and easily rate and review it right then and there.
• Businesses eligible to participate in a beta for Google Boost — our online advertising program — will receive $100 coupon offers to get started.

If you see us around town, say hello! We look forward to working with San Diego’s amazing community of business owners.

Posted by Sameer Mahmood, Local Marketing Team