Find Your Small Business a Place on Google Places

For those that don't know what it is, Google Places is basically a local business directory. When a person runs a search on Google, Google can identify the town they are in, and then provide relevant businesses that match up with their search based on their location. The service is free for small businesses to list on so definitely take advantage of it as part of your online marketing. They can provide information about their products and services, locations, hours, website, and more. To ensure only legitimate businesses are listed, Google will verify your listing by sending you a pin in the mail to the business address. You simply punch it in once you receive it and your page goes live on Google Places. Your small business will instantly see its SEO and Online Marketing improve with this free exposure.

Google Places is probably the best and quickest way to start turning up on the first page of Google search results for the areas that your business serves. If you are a brick and mortar business, then this is obviously going to be where your business has physical locations. However, if you are a service business you are often going to want to turn up in multiple towns so that you can have maximum exposure.

Google Places gives you two options when listing as part of your online marketing plan. You can select the town where you are located and then the radius which you serve around that town, or you can list all of the towns that you serve. We recommend that you list all of the towns that you serve, make a list of all zip codes where you will go and choose that option when creating your Google Places account. If you have multiple locations, you can and should create a Google Places page for each location as part of your online marketing.

As far as your small business description, you want to ensure you use the keywords you use as part of your online marketing plan. You can have a business description that is up to 200 characters. This is not a lot of room, so you are going to want to use the most important keywords. If you are in a highly competitive business, you may want to pick some niche keywords.

When you choose your actual categories (up to five) use broad categories to ensure you rank highly for more search terms. For example, Innovative Ad Solutions specializes in Social Media Marketing, but instead of that niche, we list ourselves as Internet Marketing Providers. This helps us to turn up higher for more search terms.

Once you create your Google Places page and verify your business, you should start seeing your sales increase as a direct result of your online marketing efforts. Google Places offers customers the option to review your business, so encourage them to do so. People love positive reviews and they are much more likely to visit your business if others have had positive experiences with you in the past. Online marketing revolves around brand advocates and referrals in an online setting. So, the more positive referrals you have, the more successful your online marketing efforts will be!