GOOGLE PLACES – UNDERSTANDING HOW THIS CAN HELP YOUR BUSINESS.

If you are new to Google places some of this might be heavy going, so please try to stay with me, and please by all means have Google in front of you and test some of the things i say on this blog.

Over the past 18 months or so Google has changed a lot, not many people will have noticed, but lots of people within the industry have noticed that Google is moving towards returning more local results when it can, I guarantee you have noticed but you probably haven’t paid much notice to this.

So what I want you to do is Google a local service for example taxis, you should see something like this.

Google places taxis

So what you are seeing here is a little local map and it showing you listings from A to G for taxis in your area, in the past Google’s first pages were reserved for the top 10 Organic results taken from their large index of websites.

However what you are seeing here is different, the listings from A to G are taken from the Google places listings, and it indeed shows the top 7 listings for the keyword you type in to Google, try it for some other services and you will see, try your own business niche and see who is top, you can check out their Google places page by clicking place page under the company’s name.

The results are of course local too, Google uses your IP address or GPS on your mobile to provide you with local listings to where you are in the WORLD!

If you get your business into those top 7 places you are at a distinct advantage over some of your competitors, which is what makes this so important for you to grasp.

You should see you can click more results near link at the bottom of the top 7 to see the rest of the listings, have a look around and check out some of the different place pages.

Why is this important?

There are many reasons why this is important, in the past local listings have been on a different part of Google within the places section, so not many people used them, also with this change it gives YOU and your business a chance of getting onto the first page of Google, if you can get your place page into the top 7 listings.

Another major reason is, if you have a mobile phone do the same search, and you will see the results are pretty much the same (depending on where you are in the country of course) so this is all mobile enabled, more people every day are using their mobiles to surf the internet and this is only going to grow, as better phones and faster internet comes onto the market.

Claim your listing.

If you have a business then you have a Google places listing, go and claim it today and fill out your listing.  You can do this by going to Google places, you will need to sign up, what I would suggest is you set up a gmail account and claim your listing with this email address.

1. Go to Google Maps or Google Local and search for your business by name.
2. Click on the ‘more info’ link next to the business name.
3. Click on the link ‘business owner?’ (top right hand corner)
4. Click on add new listing.
5. Enter the same information as is shown on the listing and click ‘next’
6. Google will then search for matches. Click ‘claim this listing’ next to the listing that you wish to claim.
7. Verify that you are the business owner (see below).

Make sure you verify your listing

1. Once you’ve added or claimed your listing, you need to verify that you are the business owner. Click the verify link and Google will call you back, send you a text message, or send you a postcard with a PIN number.
2. You enter the pin number.

GOOGLE PLACES OPTIMISATION – Hire me please!

If you need any help with your Google places listing or, want to get your business listing into the top 7 results then please contact me, i have been working hard on.

I have some packages that start at £125 a month for optimisation of your listing and promotion of your Google Places listing.