Get Your Website Displayed For Local Searches

Google continually fine-tunes a unique database that collects detailed information about a business.

Your business submits information such as business name, phone number, and mailing address, email address, and website URL.

Google uploads all of the information about your business and establishes a “Places” page for that business.

Google Places displays your website once you register. It's free and easy to do.
 
Register To sign up for Google Places, click here.

Google will mail you a verification code to put into your Google Places page.

Problems? If you have problems, click on this Google Link, sign in, on the Top Right click on Contact Us, click on Verification, and Verification Code Doesn't Work, where you can request a Call, Email or Chat. 

Getting Started On Google Places

It is important that your Google Place profile contains the same information as any other profiles your company may have online.

Google Places pages create another opportunity to build trust and consistency as part of your marketing strategy. Be sure to audit your other profiles and answer each question as consistently as you can.

Have you ever heard the expression “better off safe than sorry”? Take the same approach when setting up or editing your Google Places profile.

There may be questions that you consider irrelevant, but could ultimately have an impact on how you are found online. Make sure that you are filling out all standard information including:

  • Company Name
  • Address
  • Phone Number
  • Website
  • Email Address

User generated content can be a very powerful optimization tool. Actual customers may be using additional or different keywords or phrases to describe their experience with you. Reviews also add validity to your statements and information written by your company. Nothing speaks higher of a company than the testimonials of it’s customers. I would recommend encouraging customers or clients to participate or simply urge them to visit your page and see what they think.

Google Places Tips

1. Get your Google Places page to 100% completeness, before you do anything else. Your Places page isn't exactly "pimped-out" if Google itself is telling you you're missing some of the basics. (If you're not sure how to get to 100%, this pie chart will help.)

2. Make sure you get at least 5 Google reviews from your customers, so that your average customer-review rating shows up on your Places page and on the SERPs.

3. Get DOUBLE sets of average-review stars. You can do this by adding at least one customer testimonial to your website in what's called hReview microformat. Basically, hReview is a type of code you can use to tell Google "Hey, this is a testimonial from one of my customers...pay attention to it!" Having just one set of golden stars show up in the search results can boost your click-through rate; having two sets of stars can drive even more clicks from potential customers.

4. Upload as many photos as you humanly can to major third-party sites, particularly CitySearch, InsiderPages, and Thumbtack. You personally can only upload 10 photos to your Places page, but it's possible to have more than 10 show up on your Places page. How? Google pays attention to the info that third-party sites have on your business. If you can supply those third-party sources with plenty of photos, Google often will grab those photos and put them on your Places page (in addition to the 10 photos you personally can upload directly to your Places page. Upload photos as many different sites as you can (it's OK to reuse some of the same photos from site to site). By the way, you may be able to "feed" extra photos to Google by having a "Gallery" page on your website.

5. Add a "post" to your Places page that includes a link to a particularly cool page, photo gallery, special offer, or newsletter sign-up area on your website. One of the most basic purposes of your Places page is to get people to check out your site. It's easy to forget about the humble "post" feature-most business owners never even learn of it, but it's worth using if there's a specific area of your site you'd really like potential customers to see.

6. Reply to every customer review written on your Places page. Fine, maybe you don't have to reply to every one, but you should get in the habit of thanking the customers who leave you nice reviews, and graciously responding to the few who don't. Most importantly, this looks good to potential customers. It's also good way to fill out the reviews area of your page a little more, and to slip in occasional tidbits about your services that maybe you didn't have a way to mention anywhere else on your page

7. Get "Best Ever" reviews. These little badges make for nice "bling" on your Places page. Plus, they automatically count as 5-star reviews. Your customers need to go to places.google.com/ and search for your business by name in order to leave you "Best Ever" reviews.

8. Turn a couple of customer testimonials into photos, and upload the photos to your Places page. I've never actually seen this done (though I'm sure someone's done it). This is useful if a great customer wrote you a shining testimonial (in an email, in a letter, on a grain of rice...whatever) that you'd like potential customers to see, but you never asked that person to post a review for you

9. Get as many customer reviews as you can on 3 or 4 third-party sites. At the bottom of your Places page, Google features up to 3 links that go to third-party sites where customers have written you reviews. Up to 4 of these links also show up in your "preview" area, which customers see when they hover their cursors over your Places listing from the main search results page.

10. If possible, ask your most loyal customers - or best friends ;) - to upload photos to your Places page through their Google accounts. These will show up as "From a Google user." This is another approach to getting more than 10 photos on your Places page (which is the maximum number that you can upload personally). This can help potential customers realize "Hey, these people actually have customers who give a rip...they might be OK. Maybe I'll give them a buzz.

11. Add a caption to the first photo you upload. You'll want to pick this photo-and its caption-carefully because everyone who's on your Places page will see it. Unlike Bing, Google Places doesn't have a way to add captions to photos, so you'll have to save the caption as part of the image itself, and then upload the photo to your places page.

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