Introduced in March 2004, Google Local displays local business information at the top of many of Google's organic search results accompanied by a map. In June 2010, puts Google ads consist of a business, 3:07 for most of the research. Considering that most localized searches provide millions of organic search results, showing in the top 7 of Google Places can be invaluable to a business. Breaking into the Top-7 with knowledge and time and requires efforts to be there. It all starts with claiming and optimizing your Google Places local business listing. Visit Google and search for Google Places. Register for an account.
As a quick aside, it is assumed that anyone who would read this knows that Google Places only allows one listing per phone number. Don't play games with Google Places.
The first page of the submission form is mostly fill in the blank, but there are 3 important opportunities to optimize the listing. No one audits the listings to verify that the company name matches your incorporation documents, but be careful. If the legal form of company name is ""Paul's Professional Services, Inc. "", you need to carefully tweak it for the purposes of Google Places optimization. Two common ways to add a keyword or descriptor capital. For example: ""Paul's Professional Painting Services"" or ""Paul's Painting Services of Dallas"". Monkey with the company name too obvious with the methods of manipulation, the key words into the crowd, and they will tell you that your Google ads has been to places a black hole banned from Google. Typically, this is the direct result of your competition reporting your listing to Google.
Description: Carefully craft a 200 character description of your business focusing almost exclusively on your key products and services. Do not waste space here by including geographic references. Inclusion of additional cities does virtually nothing when it comes to optimizing your Google Places listing. Services include wall painting, ceiling painting, textures, faux finishes and color matching. Free estimates.
Note that the example include not only the company's top services, but also includes multiple uses of the primary keyword in various forms - ""painting"" and ""painter"" are the top two keywords in searches according to Google's Keyword Tool. Moreover, free ""is a word look up for every search term.
It is important to remember that the description is designed to reach a broader search audience - not win awards on Madison Avenue. Keep it simple and include the keywords above. 200 characters is not a lot of room, so make sure not to waste space. Begin by typing your top keywords and choose the most relevant category. Use them.
For our hypothetical company, the categories might look something like:Painter (Standard)Painting Contractor (Top keyword search / Custom Category)House Painter (Top keyword search / Custom Category)Commercial Painter (Top keyword search / Custom Category)Handyman (Standard, but an extremely popular related search term)
NEXT.
The Service Areas and Location Settings options are relatively new and are designed to allow a business to establish a service area if the company does not have a storefront of some sort. First, the choice of a service area ( ""Yes, this story serves customers at their premises "") seems to hinder the optimization process. While the jury is still out, Google continues to tweak this feature. If in doubt, with the option exactly complete for your business.
Business hours and payment options are purely optional and serve little if any value to the optimization process. Potential customers can find the information useful.
Google Places provides the ability to add up to 10 photos and 5 videos (from YouTube. Make sure you always use keywords to name your photos and take advantage of the ""tag"" functions provided by YouTube. The impact on Google Places traffic is limited, but any impact is good. To optimize your listing, create a table of your key products and services using as many keywords as possible. An example of an effective use of these fields for our hypothetical company would be:
Interior & Exterior Painting Contractor specializing in: Wall painting, Ceiling painting, Floor staining, Epoxy Floor coatings, Texture paint finishes, faux finishes, color matching, proper surface preparation
The colon is the separator between the two fields. Any number of details about your company, your products and services as far as possible.
Feel free to include service areas as one of the Additional Details for informational purposes, but do not expect it to cause your Google Places listing to show in those cities. E-mail.
The new Google Places local business listing will not be active until verified. Normally, the review completed in order to resolve a call from the computer to be Google, the number of records for the collection. In some instances, Google requires verification via a postcard mailed to the address of record for the listing. Once verified, the real work begins.
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