The Internet is continuing to grow at a rapid pace, with Internet advertising expected to overtake other mediums such as newspaper advertising in the near future. The possibilities for small, local businesses are huge, making it easier than ever to place yourself in front of potential customers. One great route for smaller businesses to increase web traffic and exposure, is via Google Places. The steps you can take towards improving your rankings are easy, and the benefits can be massive.
However, just creating / claiming a Google Places listing will not be enough to guarantee a rise in traffic or enquiries. There can be hundreds of local businesses in the same niche and in the same location as you, all vying for the top spot. Whether you are a local dentist, lawyer or even web designer, you will get a lot of benefits in terms of new customers / orders if you follow these simple steps in optimizing your Google Places listing.
The competition to rank highly is fierce.
1. Business name
Although many local businesses are using non-brand keywords for their titles etc, this isn’t particularly useful for Google Places. Use your business’ name as it is and this will ensure users find your business quickly and easily.
2. Fill in all of the required details
Although there are multiple fields in your Google Places listing, try and make sure you fill in as much of them as possible. Missing fields will only damage the chances of you ranking highly, and give users an incomplete view of your business.
3. Categories and description
It’s easy to be swayed into choosing categories that you feel will be the most popular, even if your business very loosely fits into this bracket. Always choose the category that best fits your business, and users will have more chance of finding you.
Your description is also important in giving users an instant impression of what your business is about, and what makes it stand out from its competitors. Be as descriptive as possible and leave nothing to the imagination.
4. Photographs and video
If you are just uploading pictures and videos that do not carry any SEO value, you have just wasted a precious opportunity to optimise your listing. Say you want to upload 4 photos of your car washing business – instead of using the regular 2983123.jpg file names, change those to “las-vegas-car-washing.jpg”, “car-washing-las-vegas.jpg” and so on. Anything that is keyword rich will help your listing. When it comes to videos, use services like Animoto (create videos from images) and upload your new created video on websites like YouTube. The trick is to add in your video, descriptions of your company such as name, address and phone number, exactly as listed in Google Places.
5. Competition analysis
Competition usually only comes into play when looking at organic rankings, however your competition should not be forgotten when looking at Google Places. See who outranks you in local listings and find out what are they doing right. From reviews,numbers of citations, to the number of images they have uploaded, see how the successful listings have established themselves.
6. Citations, citations, citations
Getting relevant citations will skyrocket your rankings in local results, but where to get them? As we’ve said above, see where your competition is building citations from, do the same and try to get some extra-citations on top of that. You will notice they are getting citations from business directories like maybe Yelp, Thomson, SuperPages and so on, try to dig a little deeper and search for geo-targeted business directories that for a small fee (or even for free) will list your business.
Other great places to get citations from are websites like Panoramio and Flickr for photos or video sharing websites like YouTube. Some websites accept mapping your location, some allow you to add titles / details with your business name, address and phone number. Try and fill in as much content as possible, ensuring your citations are as detailed as they can be.
Lastly, try to target local bloggers who might be able to give you a citation from a location standpoint. These opportunities can be rare, but some of the most valuable around.
7. Reviews
Although you might be tempted to write your own reviews, this is a short term action and a risky one at that. Always try and keep your content completely organic and dont do anything that may risk you getting banned from the Google Places system.
Step 1 – Prospecting: Take a day off and write down the businesses / people with whom you have worked with in the past and who you think might be happy to give you a positive testimonial.
Step 2 – Contact: Email these contacts with a link to your Google Places listing and kindly ask them to provide an honest review about your business. Include a link and an example review (perhaps from another user) to make it easy as possible for them to give you a review.
Conclusion
As you can see, in only seven short steps we’ve given you a full run down of how you can begin improving your local Google Places ranking. With an improved ranking comes more traffic, increased brand awareness and more exposure to potential customers.
Think we’ve missed anything? Drop us a comment below and let us know.
Bogdan is a 27-year-old SEO consultant working for BluDelta, a SEO Manchester agency that provides search engine optimization services to small and medium sized businesses located throughout the UK. Keep in touch with BluDelta on Twitter.
