This should be the first step of your local marketing strategy!
One of the best things you can do for your local small business marketing program is to make sure to claim your Google Places listing and make sure it is 100% complete. Without a 100% completion of your profile in Google places, most likely your listing will not show up in the top 10 organic local search placement.
While this post is about optimizing your Google places listing, you should check all of your local listings with the top search engines.
Google has gone through the process of setting up millions of Google place accounts to add to local search results and Google maps. All you need to do is to “claim” your listing by verifying you are the owner either by a phone call or by receiving a post card to the registered address.
Follow the following steps to ensure your Google places listing is 100% complete:
-claim your listing
-verify the basics: Company name, address, phone number, email
-Add your website. To fully take advantage of google search results, you should have an optimized website powered by wordpress. Check our website for more information on creating a website if you already do not have one.
-Fill out your company description incorporating some of your primary searched keywords that your customers would most likely use when trying to locate your company. Make sure it sounds good and makes sense. Do not keyword stuff or you will be penalized.
-Add your hours of operation. Even if you are available 24 hours a day, enter this information as it is important.
-Put in all payment options available, if you only have 1, that is fine, but put that in there to optimize your local search results.
-Google loves videos and pictures. We suggest putting in photos of your company, the location, services, people, etc… Use 10 photos and maybe 1 video. You can shoot a simple video talking about your services or products from your cell phone. The higher quality the better, but it will be easy to download the video off your phone, convert for free online and post to youtube. You can also use a powerpoint presentation converted to video describing your products and services if you don’t want to be on video.
In the additional areas location, make sure you put in some additional information about your company.
-Select the categories that show up as you type in your keywords. These are pre-set categories from Google that will help determine when to show your listing. You can also add a few custom fields, but make sure to use at least a few of the Google category results.
If you consider more than half of the traffic is coming from mobile devices these days, by taking advantage of Google places, you are setting your company far above your competition. In addition to the mobile market, google is now showing the top local search results above the standard organic search results when searching for local companies and services.
Do not delay, claim your listing today, it really does not take a lot of time to complete. You can always add the photos and videos later, but at least get started today.
If you are interested in finding out more about Local Search Engine Marketing make sure you have signed up for our Go Social Go Local Marketing System today. I completely outline the whole process of dominating the local search results for all the top search engines. This is a very new area that the search engines are focusing on. You can now outrank your competitor websites by focusing on the local search results. Sign up at http://www.gosocialgolocal.com.
Please leave me feedback or ask any questions on this post below.
Thanks!
Bryan Knowlton
Appraiser Income
http://www.appraiserincome.com
twitter- http://www.twitter.com/AMCDirectory
linkedin – http://www.linkedin.com/in/appraiserincome
Go Social Go Local – http://www.gosocialgolocal.com
