Low Hanging Fruit Series #1: Increase Your Search Engine Visibility with Google Places

Most business web site owners are too busy running their businesses to research web marketing every day. As a result, it can be frustrating  to suspect that there are free or inexpensive ways to promote your own site, by yourself, but you just don’t have the time to find them or even know where to begin.

This series of blog posts will make short introductions to what I call “The Low-Hanging Fruit” of web marketing and how you can do these important things yourself to promote your site’s online presence, with little effort and for little or no money.

I must declare a caveat here: There is no substitute for a professional, fulltime web marketing campaign executed by highly regarded professionals and the methods mentioned in this blog will not generate the kinds of results that a paid marketing professional can produce for your site. These methods are some of the things that a professional web marketing company will do for your site when they begin preparation for a targeted marketing campaign. I can help you find a reputable web marketing firm for most budgets and save you some pain and money. Just contact me for what may be an informative discussion for you of how web marketing works and to discuss your web marketing goals.

This first installment is going to introduce you to Google Places. Every business with a physical location should take advantage of this free listing with Google. Why? Because in the world of search engine optimization, Google is one of your best friends and claiming your Place Page for your business is another way to generate a valid backlink (more valid, quality backlinks = better relevance/traffic) to your site.

For an example of a Google Places Page follow the links below to see mine:

How my Google Places Page shows up in search results: http://tinyurl.com/3fq7c8n

My actual Chris Boggs Web Design and Development Google Places Page: http://tinyurl.com/3owt88m

Google Places is perhaps most valuable to your Local Search ranking efforts. Local search has become the focus of upgrades to Google’s search algorithms in order to provide more relevant searches to Google users so claiming your Places page is of utmost importance. Several major Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) websites have polled the SEO/SEM community’s top experts recently asking which factors are the most important for local search and on virtually every resulting list Google Places Pages come out in the #1 positions.

Once you sign up and create your basic page these top experts also cite several factors at the top of their lists that you should pay attention to in order to get the most out of your Places page:

• Usually ranked first in expert opinion as most important is Proper Category Selection. When you set up your Google Places Page (GPP) take the time to select accurate categories to which your business belongs. THe better your selections are the more accurate Google’s understanding of your business will be.
• Include the physical address of your business. Take care to make sure that it matches the address for your business that you have on your website and in any directory or other listings. Presenting honest, unified information across the web further supports your validity with search engines.
• Be sure to verify your Places Page listing. Sometimes you can do this automatically when you set it up, sometimes you will need to wait for a postcard from Google with your verification code to arrive. I have had the last 5 verification postcards arrive from Google promptly within 2-3 days even though they ask you to allow for up to 15 days for it to arrive.
• If you can provide one, because it’s a local business focused listing, supply a contact phone number that uses your local area code and once again make sure it is identical to all other numbers for your business on the web if possible. This will further convince Google of your validity as a company actually doing business in your area.
• When entering your business description use relevant keywords for your business. These are words and terms that represent your industry and your services as people using Google might type them in to a search field. This is not your sales speak, it is the key words that are descriptors of your business or services. To get a professional assessment of your most valuable keywords call me to look at your site, have a discussion with you and provide you a list that you can use in the future to enter listings and descriptions of your business at other places on the web.

These are the very most basic parts of getting started with a Google Places Page for your business. In growing your site’s ranking online there is more information than one human can learn but we can do some important things that will have positive results on your site’s visibility. Without claiming your company’s Google Places Page you are leaving local traffic and visibility on the table and it’s free. So get going and go claim your Google Places Page!