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Google Places Ranking – Get FOUND in Google Places

Google Places RankingTips to Increase Your Google Places Ranking

One of the many services we provide here at Mavidea is search engine optimization or SEO.  While we do have clients that have national exposure,  one of our specialties is providing local brick and mortar businesses a way to dominate the local market online.  While there are many steps we take to increase the search engine rankings for those businesses, there are some simple things that can be done by the average business owner or employee that can potentially help in this process. One of these is to increase your Google Places Ranking.

If you have spent any time searching for something in Google that relates to a local business then you are familiar with Google Places. For example; if you were searching for a local hair salon you might type in something like ‘hair salon Bloomington il’.  You will see that the top results are the Google Places listings which are the local map display listings. Under these listings you will see the natural organic results.

It has become extremely important to the local business owner to be visible in these Places listings and especially now as Google has merged the Places listing with your natural organically ranked website listing.  There are NUMEROUS factors that come into play when Google decides where to rank your business for different keyword phrases and therefore increasing your Google Places ranking, but I would like to provide a few tips and strategies that you can do or have done for you quite easily.

First Steps to Better Google Places Ranking

The first thing you need to do if you haven’t done it already is ‘claim’ your local Google Places business  listing.  You can go to http://www.google.com/places/ to begin this process.  It is completely free other than taking some time and you will need to create a Google Account to do this if you do not have one.  After account creation you will be prompted to search for your business and then follow the directions to claim it.  I won’t go into all the details here as this would be a long post but it is fairly simple to fill in the blank and do the basics.  While there are many things that can be done to optimize a listing and help it to rank, here are a few tips to follow when setting up your Google Places listing and a few things that should be done to your current website as well so that Google can ‘merge’ them properly to get your Google Places ranking higher.

  • Business name should be the exact business name without any other keywords or words added.  Example – GOOD:  Business Name.   BAD:  Business Name – Bloomington Illinois Widgets
  • Your address should be listed exactly as it is in your Superpages.com listing as they make sure to use the correct U.S. Postal service address. You must use the physical address and not a post office box.
  • Use your local phone number with area code as the primary number. Do not use an 800 number or tracking number as your primary. There are additional fields for an 800 or an additional number – you can place those there if you would like.
  • NOTE: It is extremely important that your business name, address, and LOCAL telephone number be exactly the same across any other local directory sites as well.  Some examples of these sites are Superpages.com, Yelp.com, Insiderpages.com, Merchantcircle.com, etc…  Most of these types of directories have a free option for you to claim and modify your listing.  This can be time consuming but it is important that your Google Places listing and any other mentions of your business name, phone, and address are uniform
  • One of the fields to fill out in your Google Places listing is your website URL or address.  Make sure you provide this.  It is also very important to have your business name, address, and local telephone number with area code on your website on every page of your website.  This lets Google know that this site is related to this listing and is geographically important to the searcher and is just one more thing that you can do to help your Google Places ranking.  It is also important to have your city, state, and zip code in the page title as well.  These steps you may have to ask your web designer to help with but they are both extremely simple and should not take long.
  • Select relevant categories for your business but do not ‘spam’ by trying to insert too many keyword phrases. Only choose those provided, do not write in extras. If a category does not fit well, do not select it. You risk not showing up for the right searches.
  • Ask happy customers to provide reviews for your business.  Encourage them to find you in Google Places and submit a review.  Reviews will help your Google Places ranking as well. After 5 reviews you will get a gold star ranking next to your business listing which makes it really stand out and encourage someone to look at it. These stars build trust with potential customers.
  • In the “about” for your company, write a clear, concise description of what your company does or sells. Don’t stuff it with keyword phrases you think people would be searching for. Just be honest and clear.

While there are numerous Google Places ranking factors to help your rankings in Google Places but these are just a few of the easier ones to get you on the right path. Once you dive into your Google Places listing a bit more you will see that you can upload photos, videos, as well as create printable coupons.  I would recommend that you fill out any field that they offer as well as upload as many photos and videos as you can.  While just doing these few things does not guarantee a better Google Places ranking, you can be assured that some of your competitors are doing nothing so why not?  Remember – proactively search for your business name and make sure that any listings you find on some of the other directories lists the name, address, and local phone number the exact same as in your Places listing and website.

We hope you have enjoyed the free Google Places ranking tips – now go get to work!

– Jason Lerblance, a Mavidea SEO Guru

This article was originally published on August 1, 2011. It was updated to the most recent best practices on October 24, 2013.

Interested in learning more about how Mavidea can help you with your online marketing? Contact us.

2 thoughts on “Google Places Ranking – Get FOUND in Google Places

  1. And, of course, the most important thing you can do to benefit your business is to hire Mavidea to do all of this and more for you. 😉

    Nice post, Jason!

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