As increasing number of searches have local intent behind them, Google is showing Places listings in many more SERPs. This presents an opportunity to either gain a spot on the first page for many businesses or to gain more space on the first page for companies already ranking on the first page. Here are five things that I’ve seen impact rankings in Google Places.
Completeness & Consistency
There are several fields to fill out when creating or editing and some of them may not seem like they are really necessary. Google wants to give users the best experience possible; in most circumstances the user will have a better experience if there is more information present on the Places page. This means not only filling out the required text fields but also the optional ones:
- Email address
- Website
- Description
- Categories
Further, you should make sure the hours are accurate, that you have filled out additional details, as well as uploading photos and videos of your business. While these may seem auxiliary, they all count towards profile completeness and should be submitted. When filling out your profile, be as thorough as possible, doing much more than the minimum required.
Think about it like being back in in school and writing a paper; you'll pass doing the minimum set forth but a little extra effort can go a long way. Don't fill out some of the extra details, fill them all out; and don't just add one photo, add several photos.
Additionally, it is important to make sure that this information is consistent across all your different citations. Accuracy across all, or almost all, citation sources helps associate trust with a Places page. If you are looking for citation sources, Get Listed has a good overview of local citation sources.
Keywords
As with traditional SEO, having your keywords in the right places is important for ranking while stuffing keywords in the wrong places will make you look like a spammer. Avoid placing your keywords in the business name (unless the keyword is part of your business name) and the business categories. Both of these will bring the wrath of Google upon you and end up with your Places page removed.
Do make an effort to strategically use your keywords in your description. Don't keyword stuff, but word your description carefully and use your primary keyword phrases.
Service Area
Specifying a service area is a great idea for many businesses that come to you such as tutors, maids, and handymen. If you are unfamiliar with the service area option, it is simply being able to set an area that your business serves rather than specifying an address for your company; it will show up on the map as a circle rather than a pinpoint. The problem is that we have seen a decrease in rankings when businesses have selected to display a service area rather than their business location. While I hope this is something that Google changes in the future and it becomes a viable option for business, but in the meantime, stay away from the service area feature.
Encouraging Reviews
Reviews are one of the best ways to increase your local search rankings but good reviews can be difficult to come by as it seems the only folks motivated to write up a review feel they have been treated unfairly. While you can’t incentivize reviews (Google calls this a conflict of interest), you might try some of the following:
- Send a message to your Facebook fans or email list and ask them to leave a review at your Google Place page
- If you send out follow up, or reminder, post cards (such as many dentists) incorporate a call to action to review your business
- Put a call to action (and link) asking for a review on your web site
- Display a sign by your cash register or hand them a flier with their receipt asking for a review
Make sure to make the process as easy as possible, provide a link to your Places page and give detailed instructions on what they need to do leave a review.
Bulk Uploads
While the idea of bulk uploads, creating multiple places pages (10+) at a time by uploading a data file to Google, is a godsend for many companies with franchises or several locations, it can be a long process to get the listings approved. There are a few things you should keep in mind when you are doing a bulk upload:
Brand Name in the Title
While this might be the only option for companies like Pagliacci Pizza, a Seattle Pizza chain, where all of the locations have the same name, some businesses have names that vary by the individual performing the work or by the location (such as West Coast Athletic Clubs, which own several athletic clubs operated under different names). For businesses doing an upload for branches with different names, make sure the parent company name is incorporated
Aggressive Keyword Placement
Putting keywords in places they don’t belong, such as the business name, categories, or keyword stuffing the description, is a surefire way to get your entire bulk upload denied. If you have a lot of different listings always err on the side of caution here.
Unique New York
If all of your listings have the same contact information, you are going to run into trouble. Make sure that all of these listings are as unique, differentiated, and complete as possible. In particular, make sure that the following are all different:
- Phone numbers (and make sure they are a local area code)
- Contact emails
- Addresses (this should be a no-brainer)
- Description – make this unique to the location
- Categories/extra fields – if anything varies by location, you should note it.
- Website – if you have different URLs for different locations, use the specific URL for the location instead of the root (don’t worry, only the root will be displayed).
After you have gone through all of the work to create good listings, don't forget you need to verify your listings.
Please share any tips for local search that you've learned in the comments.
If you want to learn more about local SEO, I recommend the following these folks on twitter and reading their blogs:
Other Local Resources:
Really nice overview Goeff.
I wanted to remind everyone that regular SEO factors carry the most weight right now, with the new Google Local MERGED algo that started showing up Oct 27th. When I broke the story about my discovery of the new merged layout on Mike Blumenthal's blog way back in July, I didn't realize the entire algo and local search game would be changing.
Since then I've done lots of reverse engineering of the algo and here is my take on things.
The OLD Google Places algo used 50 ranking factors that most people know by now. NAP consistency, reviews, citations, location and many of the things Geoff is talking about.
However the new MERGED algo is much more reliant on your web site and traditional organic SEO factors. PLUS it takes having certain local hooks to tie it all together or the merged listing won't happen.
So reviews and citations don't carry as much weight as they did prior to Oct. 27th. (As of today, subject to change on G's whims. ;-))
NOTE: You still need to optimize for both site and Place page however, because there are 2 algos at play.
When you see the old style 2 line Places 3 pack or 7 pack style listing, then G is using the OLD Places algo that takes reviews and citations into account. (This layout for a few months was showing up on less competitive searches only - but seems to gradually be making more of a comeback and is starting to show up more and more in some cities for CORE KW searches.)But when you see the larger merged listings, ranking order is predominently determined by organic SEO ranking factors.
If anyone wants more info or proof of this I can explain how you can compare today's merged rankings against the old organic SEO rankings. Or maybe one of these days I can do a blog post here about some of the tricks and tools I use to reverse engineer the local algo.
Linda
Hey Linda,
Thanks so much for sharing. I would love to read the post you mentioned as well as any other information/data you're aware of if you wouldn't mind sharing those URLs as well.
Great post Geoff and great response Linda. I too would be interested in reading your post on local search.
I agree with you that citations should not be the prime focus on your local search strategy, but a one component of your overall off-page optimization efforts. It's going to be different for every line of business, and I although there is huge opportunity for growth in local search, there's also a lot more digging and testing we need to do to confirm the legitimacy of the results.
I'm still waiting on Google to integrate Google Places analytics data into Google Analytics... if you can hear me Google, please do it already! :)
hey Linda, I would like to see that post aswell on detailing what you are seeing with the 2,3,7 pack coming back and what is working with ranking with the old algo and the new algo
I like the review part, its motivate the folks to participate on the pages.
Linda,
Great reply - we see a number of algos at play for places listings - each runs for a short duration 1 - 2 weeks, then is replaced. We believe it is a spam deterent and a way Google can play to all the local businesses. for instance One of the algorithms seems to place a heavier weight on distance from geo modifier. Another has reviews given the highest weight. Yet another is more of the mixed result with good SEO favored.
2 tidbits we've found to be helpful:
Never chase the algorithm like the spammers do (this is why we believe G rotates them out)
Only modify your listing if absolutely necessary (providing you have good placement of course)
Dave
Hi Linda, would be great to read your blog post about that.
One of our clients answered on severel reviews on his place page. But only one answer has been overtaken and shows up on the profile now. Does anyone experienced the same issues?
Furthermore I would suggest to use a really good standing out picture which shows up on the 7-pack - an eye catcher which brings you your first andvantage of the whole listings.
Thats because people have been gaming the review section and Googl is somewhat overwhelmed on how to judge the legitimate review.
People do not understand that the places page is not a forum. If I may post an observation, Google normally picks up the reviews based on popularity and hence the response to that review would be a part of it...
"Google normally picks up the reviews based on popularity and hence the response to that review would be a part of it"
Thanks for that info. That is something I was not aware of! Thanks again!
Oddly, I have not run into this yet. I spent all afternoon replying to all our reviews, thanking those that left good ones and doing the best I could with the few negative ones. Sadly, Google locked me out of the account and removed all of my replies. Not sure if this helps, but perhaps the two are related.
Thank you Geoff for the post, especially for its all-in-one information (glad to see all those links).
Two things:
1) I remind to all the readers that the White Spark Local Citation Finder works also for Spain and Europe.
2) In a mobile era as this one, remember how the Google Places profiles is also the key around which the Mobile Apps of before called HotPot is built. Surely not so popular as Foursquare, but an element to be taken into account.
Absolutely right! Google is doing very fine work with improving optimisation for pages optimised for mobile phones. Don't forget that many people don't have Iphone or some android. Wap is still No1 for phones running under Java. Consider it.
Spammy Places pages are big problem for google at the moment, beacuse huge number of those pages are still highly ranked. therefore, we cannot be focused just on Google places pages in building our local business profiles.
God damm'it those lousy Spaniards and our Europeist pretentions :)
I have read the David Mihm guide & followed steps he mentioned, but I think its diffcult to get ranking in Place page, sometime things work & sometime they simply dont. But the important thing I have learned is Citation is one of most important factor in ranking in Google Places & in citation consistency matters alot
I think that Google has been putting places results on a large bunch of queries. Therefore, a well presented, reviewed page is more likely to get within the 1st 3 of the places listings on a SERP than some absurd spammed listing. I would like to add that if its applicable, its always good to add meaningful photos (front face of the property if its a local store).
Good article. People often flippantly fill out their Google Places profiles without really thinking about how it can benefit their companies. These are great tips.
One thing that was somewhat touched on is keyword stuffing. From what I understand, an actual human being reads and approves each profile -- or at least the ones in question. Keyword stuffing is one of the main things Google looks for in the approval process. It also looks tacky to prospective clients/customers.
Read the quality guidelines and follow them precisely.
Thanks Geoff. Great post.
One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is how duplicate listings within Google Places can damage trust so neither listing is shown in the results. It is worth thoroughly checking for duplicates and removing them if necessary (this may require claiming duplicates in the first instance or contacting Google directly).
Also with large scale projects - 50 plus branches - I would recommend using utm tracking code so you get a true picture of how much traffic Google Places is sending you.
I'm finding with my clients, that the reviews particularly are helping - either to rank higher or simply because it highlights the reviewed business to searchers more than businesses with no reviews/ratings.
People don't often like to ask for reviews, but one thing that encourages business is for potential customers to see good feedback from genuine previous customers.
Also, if your clients get listed on Qype, for example, then happy customers can post there once and Google Places draws in those reviews as well, which enhances the client's business in two locations on the web. :-)
Haven't seen Qype before but it looks pretty cool. Reviews are hard to get, and it can be difficult to find a good way to ask for them, but you're right, they will go a long way in helping your rankings
I am going to echo the comments of several people above me regarding the very brief, almost passing, mention of citations in your post.
From my own experience, I would stick my neck out and say that, citations are probably the most powerful ranking factor of Google Places listings.
Links are to organic rankings as citations are to Places rankings.
Having said that, I also had amazing success recently with generating links into a Places page, as you would with the website itself. It was more of an experiment to begin with but it seems to have had a super effect.
I’ll try and replicate it with another Places page and see it was just a fluke or not!
Links to listing page using phone number, address and name as anchor text seems to help boost the ranking ;)
Solid information on best practices for these important listings. However, I do still see spammy Places pages ranking highly in Google. Particularly are pages with keywords stuffed in the additional details section. One good practice everyone should follow is to look at the directories and alternate sources of information used by Google in its local SERPS. You will want to make sure that you have consistent information in each of these sources as well.
When you notice spammy Google Places listing just report it. If more people start doing that Google Places will be a better place. Or at least I hope so. ;)
Can virtual or out-of-state businesses do anything with Google Places?
Let's assume I'm a photographer and I want to service an area where I do not live or have a physical location, anyway I can use Google Places to my advantage?
I believe renting PO boxes with local addresses (suite numbers vs. PO box numbers) would work for this.
I know a PO box addres is against the Google Places Guidelines but has anyone tried a street address rented mailbox?
Not me. I did not even know that using a PO address is against Google TOS! Well, you live and learn!
I too would like to know the answer!
thanks for the list of possibilities. many things I have not yet observed.
Interestingly, I've seen ranking reporting software recently start including the Google Places results in reports, where that used to not be the case. It could be that something's changed with the ranking software but I'm thinking that it has more to do with the software not being able to tell the difference between the Places listings and organic results.
The problem with injecting Google Places listings into the SERPs is that many searches are not local in nature. This significantly alters the Google search results and creates anomalies in search engine optimization.
For example, searches for 'famous austrian composers', 'atomic weight of radium', 'cheap HDTV', 'red sox tickets', 'miata engine tuning' and 'list of popes' have no geographical context or restriction. Why should the results be infested with the 'best matches' (however bad) from Google Places?
In addition to polluting the SERPs with these irrelevent results, this also encourages mischief from content farms and black hat SEOs who game the system to get their pages in the results for unrelated queries. It's a lot easier to do this for Google Places than for the same search conducted globally.
Google should implement a 'show local results' setting that could be turned on/off by the user. That way, someone looking for 'great italian restaurants' could choose to find one in his neighborhood -- or see the results of a worldwide Zagat survey.
Google has come into our agency to present about places a few times, some advice from as you said never put non business related keywords in your title, or they will hit your listings hard. But other then that some good advice you have put out I think the best thing about places is to use common sense and not be silly. I just hope Google takes action aggainst all the businesses who use the same gmail account to spam all their own clients listings to rank higher it is soo obvious in some cases.
Hello !!
I just want to know that "WHAT SHOULD BE THE PERCENTAGE OF PUTTING THIRD PARTY REVIEWS ON LOCAL LISTING ?" or " AT WHAT INTERVAL WE SHOULD GIVE THIRD PARTY REVIEWS ?"
Kindly reply ASAP.
I also have the same question!
Geoff: Nice article. Thanks for including me on the list of tweeters to follow on the bottom of the article. I'm Dave Oremland and I tweet under /localoptimizer
Heh: I was wondering how a lot of real SEO's were following that account as of the last few days....and now I know. SEOMOZ is a powerful voice in the SEO world. (and for the last few days I've only had gibberish, jokes and comments about bin laden, with virtually nothing of substance on Local SEO.
Geoff: Very concise article on developing a Google Places profile that is consistent and that won't set off a potential google filter against possibly spamming the Places Index.
I basically agree with comments by Linda Bouquet above. Linda is clearly one of the people that knows her stuff. I'll comment a bit more on some of her suggestions.
I agree wholeheartedly with her that since 10/27/10 the changed presentation of local results by Google has changed the game plan. Rankings are profoundly more impacted by standard SEO methods than by Google Places elements, at least IMHO. For many it has created a dramatically different game.
Regardless, I'd do everything possible to get a clean G Places record, as suggested above by Geoff. I'd also use deep NAP (name, address, phone #) research as suggested by Linda to clean up bad data. Its essentially no more complex than using advanced search methods ie. put your business name or some alternatives in a search and wrap " " (quotation marks) around your address or phone number A simpler way to do this is to use the above referenced Whitespark tool. I still like doing this by hand. I further like doing this several different ways to ensure catching all kinds of errors.
I'd spend some time building a lot of citations. Amongst others David Mihm has generated solid lists of popular citation sources including UBL that populates your record amongst a lot of important sources (for a small fee). I'd add pictures, videos, fill out all information and spend time on reviews: IMHO and experience Mike Blumenthal has a terrific set of articles on best practices for building reviews including a how to do so by smb operators.
I totally agree with things Mike and others have written on the topic. Good reviews start inside the business with great customer service.
Here is something I picked up and haven't published nor have I seen anyone else publish this:
If you find bad citation data that is screwing up your places information and either giving wrong information or causing duplicate records contact Google directly in the g Places forum. I'd suggest trying it in the following manner:
1. Be articulate and to the point.
2. Identify the bad record and tell google exactly where and what the problem is with the faulty citation that you discovered (probably by deep research) ie does it have the wrong name, address, phone number, etc.
3. Be courteous.
4. If you don't get a quick response contact one of several people in the forum that seems to get responses. Ask them to submit this on your behalf.
I'm not a huge G Places denizen, but of late my comments and questions under several different account names have gotten very fast responses. Either I've been lucky or Google Places has earmarked me. I don't know. There clearly are several commentators within the G Places forum who do get responses via Google.
5. I repeat be articulate, clear and precise.
I want to reiterate what Linda said about the current emphasis on organic ranking issues as opposed to Places issues as a source for traffic. I spend most of my time working on my own businesses which have different partners. Today I spent part of the time going over an issue with an operating partner and went back and looked at the impact of improving that SMB's rankings from something below #1 for a critical local keyword to #1 (currently is visable in a merged rank/link with organic and G Places informaiton).
When we moved his rank from below #1 (probably #2 or #3) to #1 we ended up about tripling traffic to the site for that phrase. With conversion rates for the phrase in a range of 7-11% on contacts we dramatically increased the # of conversions. Being #1 is worth a lot. I saw similar improvements for some other critical (though less popularly used phrase variations) for that business.
Very visable improvements. Now I got his attention to make sure he takes care of his part of the arrangement so that we can do something similar with some other critical phrases.
Anyway nice article, nice comments and good luck one and all to optimizing.
This technique really works, i myself also tried this & also getting lots of visitors from google places..
try it out..
Nice article about Google Pales (local search in google). Still something is missing.
1. images
2. videos
both are very importent in google plaes optimizing servies.
Great article with lots of good tips. For businesses with multiple locations in the same geo, all with the same offerings, should we try to focus the individual listings on unique products/services? You mentioned the importance of having unique descriptions by location, but I'm curious if there is a benefit or not for targeting specific products in the individual listsings.
For example, say you run 3 italian restaurants - one could focus on pizza, one on pasta and one on risotto. If they all have unique physical addresses, but a common URL, would this allow the company to rank higher in multiple categories (and hence, queries) than if each listing included all 3 items?
Thank you for the post. it was encouraging to see i was implemeting most of these tips. except the service areas. we have a client who installs mobiltiy equipment and they cover a huge service area, rather than have customers come to them so we kinda need to put the service areas for each office location
This is a lot of great information; some of which I did not consider for Google Places optimization. I learned some new facts I wasn't aware of on this page. Google allows you to list more than one business in the same account and I can see where this would be beneficial for a chain of stores.
I am just curious to know the best way for a person who runs two separate home based businesses to list both in Google places.
Also, it is true companies should check their listings regularly to ensure there are no inaccuracies out there since content this information is scraped from other websites. Kind of like doing a checkup on your credit.
Geoff:
Great post but obviously a lot has changed since this was written.
The Additional Details section no longer displays on the live Google+ Local page (aka Google Places page). There is some debate whether or not Google still looks at that information internally for ranking purposes or not. You can fill out but don't expect it to do much for rankings and obviously none of the information will show up on the live page.
I disgree with your comment on using keywords in the categories. You should strive to use keywords IF they describe what you actually are. For example, if you are a painting contractor then it's obvious you'd want to be found for the keyword, "painting contractor." Use that as a category - Painting Contractor. Just make sure you follow the "is not does" rule.
Regarding Service Areas...Google now requires service-based businesses to choose, "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations." If you ignore this rule, you ignore it at your own peril:)
Travis Van Slooten
GpPros.com
excellent article, i think that every people doing to know this
thank you :)
cheers
Thanks for the article on Google Places. You reiterated much information I have learned, but I never was quite sure how to fill the "Details" section and you helped me much with this, thanks.
Would a site with more backlinks and a poorly optimized place page, appear higher in place page rankings than a site with a well organized place page, but way less backlinks?
Thanks for the answer...
Thanks Geoff, nice post!
Thank you so much for sharing, GREAT LOCAL SEO TIPS
Interesting. Any suggestions or past methods of promoting positive reviews?
There is a ton of great information in this discussion. But I feel I still have a situation that is unaddressed here. The set up:
1) A service business with one physical location and approx. 25 service areas.
2) Need to determine the best use of address for GP & standardize for all listings/directories.
The physical location would be farther from "center of town" so I'm concerned that using the actual address allows competitors whose offices are closer to the center to appear higher.
Using City and a "Central" zip - what are the pros & cons? i.e. San Diego, 92101
A previous SEO used the city name i.e. San Diego + the actual zip of the physical office (outside of San Diego) - can anyone offer thoughts/advice on this strategy?
The actual address would be in an outskirting city "El Cajon", but the service area covers all of San Diego and outlying areas...
So, true physical address is best, City Center (name & zip) or combo of major city name and true zip?
Although google places service area required the following optional information:-
But as you said updating other parameter like adding relevant videos, uploading photos are also important for proper optimization for the visitors since when users search for your business in google places its necessary to present true data for the clients rather than confusing information. The more website's presentation smarter the more trust you can build. Internet marketing is all about sharing your knowledge with your friends and families. Reviewing is another fantastic option when somebody one to rank in local search engines place like Google. Its not only ranking is all about but what review and rating does is how people interacts with your sites.
Another point you make is all listing must be unique. Great advise...
Specifying Areas:Setting exact location in G places profile is another beautiful way to generate local clients. Local searchers can also find your location if you integrate a map in your website since google places optimization service do not show exact area for your site.
That’s all i really share with my experience with you...
Quality post never crying like you.
Thanks a lot for providing valuable information and many more to come in future...
Thank you FlowersBrown for sharing your experience. As a newbie myself I found it immensely helpful. I am now using your tips to get my site ranked in Google places. Thanks again! :)
The article overall was concise. However I differ about the use of service area field in Google Places. In our campaigns for clients we have have used this feature with the best of the results. Either by city or by radius we have never seen unfavourable rankings.
I think Google has its own list of criteria and that it uses the category to determine the feasibility of service area entered.
The local integration that Google is doing is critical for SEO and Local Marketing going forward. Great post at a great time.
Any leads on support for accounts that need help? Have account that does NOT display owner responses to reviews.
Great post! I'm trying to stay on top of the current trends in localization as I see the need for it increasing. I especially appreciated the part of your post on Service Area. I have a lot of clients, myself included that don't have a storefront or specific address location. Does anyone else have any input in this area that would be benefical to localizing businesses that service an area, but don't have a specific address?
for local searches it will help to get in rank but most of the time peoples searches global searches and it will ony give you the position in google places rather than google web i think so.
From experience, I wanted to add that a person should add thier unique phone number to their Google local listing, especially if that person shares a phone number with other people, such as in a real estate office. Google Place listings will often become mixed up otherwise and tied together. This is frustrating for agents who compete with other agents in their office. I have seen one person's listing show up with their name and picture and their competition's website address and reviews.
Another problem I see is with resorts that sell timeshares listing themselves as real estate agencies. They of course show up better in Google Places because of all the citations they get from those rating their resort.
Google seems to have a long way to go in ironing out the fine details.
Other than the link what is the benefit for businesses with only an online presence? I understand the more Google knows about you the better, but honestly is it that important to have your Places page optimized if you work out of a warehouse and litterally just run your website?
Little to no benefit (IMO) unless you're focused on local area clients.You will also have trouble getting listed in some of the more important local directories unless you can prove to them that you are truly a "local business" (i.e. you deal with your customers face-to-face) as opposed to just an online business.
I guess being visible in the local community could generate local visits. That actually makes a lot of sense. It sounds like it would actually be a large benefit. Has anyone had any success with this?
If you don't have a way to serve a local customers (such as having a location for them or you don't go to them) then I really don't think it's the most appropriate to be in Google Places. I think the main purpose of it is really to help people find local businesses. Those are just my thoughts though.
In theory its possible that your website serves local customer, but frankly no different than those who are international. I guess that there are some benefits, and if you get someone to show up at the front door - GREAT! It'll be good for your Twitterfeed.
I have seen Google second guessing search quieries that don't have local modifiers simply because it belives that there should be one there. For this reason I would have a places page. Its a bit naughty but it is happening.
Should reviews from google checkouts / shopping link with out physical places site? At the moment I have > 150 reviews on google checkout but 0 on the places...
Unfortunately, I'm unaware of a way to do this. It seems like something they should be able to integrate though...
Great points, i especially like the review system on Google Places, and encouraging customers to leave you a review, as this is very powerful and a selling point of your services, when you have a good bunch of reviews on Google Places.
Awesome post. Local is where it's at right now. Keep it coming!
You have to fill out all your local business profiles (not just Google places) as completely as they allow you too. The more information you include in your profile, the more attractive it looks to the search engines. It is also a lot more user-friendly if they can find all the information they need right there. This helps convince visitors to click through from your local profile to your main company site.
Google Places is also using your website's title tag's to as one major factor (there are over 200) to determine placement on Google Places. For best leverage, it's a good idea to make the first words your most important keywords and adding local attributes...
For example, chage 'Website Design' to 'NYC Website Design' or super widgets by the widget company (where super widgets is what you want to rank for)However, do be spammy.
Sammy Noorani
SEO Specialist
RevSystems, Inc.
www.RevSsytems.com
[email protected]
Hmm, I haven't come across someone suggesting not to use the Service Area for Google Places page. I agree Google has some things to work out with the Service Area. I tried to switch a client's page to the Service Area feature because they had a PO box address and was unsuccessful. I hope Google fixes this soon.
Nothing about citations? Geo tags?
Very good blog, no doubt
Great post. GetListed.org and David Mihm really know their "local stuff," along with many of the other professionals that you named. In fact, they have their own category in my Google Reader. Great blogs to follow on local search.
Thanks for confirming that I am not being spammy by adding product information into the additional information areas.
Useful advice, thanks Geoff! Here are a couple of extras - Adding a profile photo that shrinks 'well' to thumbnail size can help to stick out from the crowd. In some cases, portrait aspect profile photos are stretched automatically to fit the thumb - which can look pretty bad and impact click through rates. Make use of the full-width places icon by uploading a profile image thats shrinks to 85x60 pixels. I've also noticed a bump in rankings on several places listings after attaching videos from Youtube (that have consistent brand citations).
Common sense advice and a nice prompter to adjust some of my over-optimised listings... Feel bad about it now.
If your listing is doing well then DON'T TOUCH IT! ... Editing a listing may get you sent to the back of the local line.
I'd have given this more than one thumbs up if I could
great list of sources.
I don't agree with you on that we shouldn't place keywords in a title of our listing. I am sure that when it is done in a smart way then it can help our business and our listing won't be removed from Google places.
"I don't agree with you on that we shouldn't place keywords in a title of our listing. I am sure that when it is done in a smart way then it can help our business and our listing won't be removed from Google places."
Really bad advice. Not only is that the easiest way to get your client's listing rejected or suspended but it can HURT their rankings as well.
Google uses an EXACT match algo to find citations around the web, so if you change your name or add keywords Google sometimes can't match up the legit citations a company already has. I run into this all the time with Dentists who do it fairly innocently. Let's say their legal name is "ABC Dental" and that's how it's listed in all the IYPs and Directories. But then at some point on their site they decide to call it "ABC Family and Cosmetic Dentistry", because it's more descriptive or sounds better. So that's what they put on the Place page without even realizing they are hurting their rankings. They aren't even doing it to try to rank better. They are just doing it because they don't know any better.
One of the 1st things I do before I do a free consult even, is NAP research. An example of what I might find in a situation like the above is 6,500 pages on Google that reference "ABC Dental" +city. But there are 0 that reference "ABC Family and Cosmetic Dentistry" +city because the only place that version of the name is listed, is on their site in a .jpg logo. So they lost citations due to using a bad variation of the name in their Place page title.
Same thing happens when someone adds keywords just try to help their rankings. It throws off their citations. Then once they do an edit later, it will trip a red flag and they'll get rejected or suspended. Happens all the time!
Linda
Linda, Do you have any tips on how to most efficiently do NAP research? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Hi,
Great discussion…!
Review is play important role in your online business promotion, positive review from any user is good for recommendation to any other. Google place listing is more beneficial with your review but it should be done by experienced SEO services provider.
I could not agree more! Google places is definitely the way to go!
Great article about the importance of the Google Places page. Suggestions on getting reviews?
Some good basics, Geoff. If you want to see an example of what I think is an almost perfectly optimized Google Places page, check out this one done by one of our employees. As Geoff says, it's just critical for small and local businesses to take advantage of this powerful presence builder. This particular one has already had a positive impact on our client's listing - try "boots bend oregon" for example. They come up #2 in the SERP 4-pack.