If you have registered your business on Google Maps before (business listings are now called Google Places), then you may have received an email today about a new initiative Google is launching, called Google Tags.

If you sign up by tomorrow, you can get one month of free promotions using Google Tags on your Google Places account.

From the looks of it, Google Tags adds some functionality to your Google Places profile and allows you to run promotions which appear as an additional graphic on Google Maps in search.  I have yet to use it personally.

These tags do NOT have any effect on your search rankings, so don’t think that (video still raises your rankings on Maps, however, more on that later).

Google Tags can be used for specific promotions, but they can also be used to simply promote certain features or aspects of a business which may stand out to someone who is searching.

As always with anything relating to search engine marketing, always do keyword research (and for this especially, local keyword research) to make sure you’re not throwing money away.

But for only $25 per month (flat fee!), this could be a great marketing tool if the market is there.  Remember, if you need any help setting up your campaign or doing research, Utah’s coolest marketing company is always available… (shameless plug for my company…).

Google launched Google Tags officially back in May 2010, but are now starting to promote it more heavily.  The bulk of Google’s revenue is generated by their advertising products, and they’ve been trying for the past ten years to find and build something else to generate revenue, because advertising revenue alone won’t be enough to sustain the tech giant.  This is still advertising, but it’s innovative and built on the back of another of their free products (Google Maps/Places).  That’s smart business.