Tips To Help You Make The Best Of Google Places

Each day millions of people use Google to search for information

. Three-quarters of these searches are for local content and about four out of five local searches are followed up by a phone call or personal visit to the business. Additionally, over a half of Americans rely on Google to find local businesses such as grocers, dentists, ballet teachers and the like. These statistics should convince any business owner of the need to have their business listed on Google Places.

Getting a business listed is not enough though because there is likely to be much competition from other businesses in the same location. Business owners should therefore optimize their Google Places pages so as to draw more traffic than the competition. Luckily, there are companies that can help to assess a businesss online visibility and provide a local search report showing how well the business is placed on the local listings. Based on such a local search report the business owner can tell how much more optimization effort is required.

Google Places optimization is really not difficult because there are several simple yet powerful techniques that business owners can use to bolster online visibility. One of these is using photos and videos. It is interesting that many people dont appreciate the importance of adding pictures and videos to their listings. To start with, Google ranks listings with pictures and videos more favorably than those without. Secondly, they help to attract attention from potential customers who are then likely to follow up with a phone call or a visit to the business. Business owners should therefore post high quality and relevant photos of their products to help market themselves. A bakery can post pictures of enticing pastries while a tour operator can profit immensely from a video showing some of the exotic places that clients can visit. The addition of video clips and photos has been found to result in favorable showings in local search report.

Another easy yet powerful way to improve rankings is having customers post reviews about a business and its products. Google ranks businesses with plenty of reviews more favorably but one is advised not to cut corners by faking reviews. Genuine reviews are important because lots of potential customers actually read them and base their next decisions on the impressions theyve gleaned from other peoples reviews. The quality of reviews you get also indicates how satisfied your customers are with your services. Business owners should thus encourage satisfied customers to post testimonials because such testaments help to vindicate the claims made by businesses on their websites.

Many people do not recognize the importance of cross referencing their businesses on other directories. How does this help a business? By listing their businesses on other sites such as Yelp, Yahoo Local and Local.com, business owners allow Google to have multiple reference points for their businesses. This works to add credibility to a business and thus Google ranks it higher. Business owners must not forget to regularly monitor their rankings in local searches. A performance dip in the local search report should in effect highlight the need for a change in optimization strategy.

by: Billy Sharp

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