Google Places and Local Listings

If you are aware of it or not, you probably already have a Google Places page. Google automatically created these for most businesses.

Google Places (local listings on the other search engines) are now placed in an absolutely prime position when anyone does a search. Therefore if you are looking to generate leads on the Internet it is important that your listing is well ranked.

Ranking a Google Places page requires that all the information that Google asks for is completed. The more information we give them the better! This should include pictures and videos as well as making sure that the correct key phrases are used in the right places.

However, ranking is not so simple! Google has been rapidly changing how they display these results and in fact uses a number of different formats to do this.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

CLICK TO ENLARGE

The biggest change is that in most cases Google now shows what is known as a "blended" result. This is a combination of your Places Listing and your Organic or SEO results.

This means that it is even more important to make sure that both your web site and your Places listing are optimized and rank well in order to get the best results.

One of the big advantages of Google Places listing is that they are often shown with a graphic or image and that makes it stand out and attract more attention. This really helps get more traffic to your web site.

A lot of different factors go into getting your Places listing optimized to rank well

• Strategic use of keywords or key phrases
• Selecting the right Categories
• Making sure you complete as much information as possible
• Reviews on both Google and other sites like Yelp, InsiderPages, etc.
• Adding photos
• Adding videos
• Your physical location in respect to what is being searched (the closer the better)
• The number of "citations" or places your business is mentioned or listed in directories on the Internet

Unfortunately, just like SEO, this takes time and is something that needs to be an ongoing task.

CLICK TO ENLARGE