Claiming your Google Place Page listing is imperative no matter if you have an online or offline business.
Google Places, formerly known as Google Maps, is a fantastic way to maintain an online presence, especially if you have a physical business without a website. You can provide potential customers, who are likely to be looking for a local service, with valuable and specific information about your exact location, opening hours, photos, videos, your services and customer reviews. It also allows you to offer customers additional incentives to use your business in the form of coupons.
The process of claiming your Google Places listing is very simple. Simply open a Google account and once you have done this and logged in, you need to go to Business Solutions. In the “Reach New Customers” section, you’ll see a link for Google Places. Clicking on the link will take you to the section where you can claim your business listing.
Many businesses have reclaimed their Google Places listing but have not fully utilized it and as a result it will be of little value. Simply entering the business name, address, phone number, and choosing a business category type is not enough.
Many local Google searches will now return a first page of results that includes a Google map along with a list of up to 7 businesses that Google believes match the search query. So, for example, if a potential customer searches for ‘Plumber in Manchester’, Google will return results that include a list of 7 local plumbers and a map of Manchester and the surrounding area with markers pinpointing the exact locations of each of the 7 companies. .
As a plumber in Manchester, you would ideally like to be featured as one of these 7 business listings. To give you the best chance of doing so, you should make full use of your Google Places listing by entering as much information as possible. If you don’t optimize your listing properly, it won’t show up on Google Places.
Here are 10 tips for optimizing a Google Place Page listing:
1) Specify your company name (it may be helpful to also include the geographical area you are targeting, ie XYZ Plumbing Ltd | Manchester).
2) Please list the full details of your business address, including zip code (if you work from home, you may choose to keep your address private).
3) Add your main phone number plus additional fax, mobile numbers if you have them.
4) Enter your website details (check the box if you don’t have one) and your email address.
5) You now have 200 characters to describe your business. It is very important that you include keywords here in the description that potential customers will use to search for your type of business and location.
6) The next section asks you to specify the categories your business falls under. This is an area where many businesses fail to claim their Google Places listing. There is one category box available initially and you will see cases where companies fill this single category box and then continue, while in fact there are 5 category boxes that can be filled. You must list your business in a category that matches Google’s suggestions as you type in the details. For example, when you start typing ‘Plumber’, Google will suggest ‘Plumber’ and ‘Plumber Tradesman’. You can then click ‘add category’ 4 more times and enter your own category keywords based on what people use to search for your type of business including location ie ‘Plumbing Services Manchester’, ‘Plumbing Engineer’ heating Manchester’, etc.
7) Choose whether your business provides services, such as delivery or home repair, to locations in a certain area. Here you can choose to hide your address if you prefer and choose to display the area your business serves in terms of distance or by specifying the actual areas covered by place names or postal codes.
8) Specify your opening hours.
9) List all payment options available to customers.
10) Add business/product images (list as many as you can up to a maximum of 10), videos (maximum of 5), and any additional details about your business i.e. parking, warranties, refund policies, etc.
As you add information to your listing, everything you’ve completed so far appears on the right side of the page along with a percentage. The goal is to complete each section and achieve a 100% completion score.
Google has the following help pages to help you as you go: “Building a Great Listing,” “Tips to Help People Find Your Business,” and “Business Listing Quality Guidelines.”
To further enhance your listing and give you the maximum opportunity to appear on Google’s Top 7 Business Map and List on Page 1 for your search terms, you can add coupons and get reviews. There is a separate coupon tab that appears on the ‘View Report’ page. Creating coupons online helps encourage people to visit your site or contact your business. Invite customers to review your service through their own Google accounts. Getting more reviews than your competitors gives you the opportunity to get a much higher ranking listing.
When you are done completing your listing, Google will ask you to verify your listing. You can do this by receiving a phone call, a text message on your mobile phone or by sending a postcard to your business address. It’s much faster and easier to verify by phone or text. You will be given a PIN number that you simply enter on your Google Places page.
You can see how your ads are seen by potential customers by logging into your account and clicking ‘See your ad on Google Maps’.
Google is also offering a new ‘View Report’ dashboard that gives you important insights into the number of impressions (how many times users saw your business listing as a local search result) and actions (how many times users showed interest in your listing). business) registered. for your listing. This is very useful information that can be used as part of the search engine optimization of your listing and website, if you have one.
If your business isn’t listed, there’s no better time than now. Searching for local businesses online will only increase in importance and the sooner you take your stand, the better. You can drive free, targeted traffic to your business.
