In this episode, I look at how you can use Google Places to get more enquires for your small business. We’ll look at what it is, where it ranks and why you’d be mad not to get a free listing!
Podcast Transcription:
WHY GOOGLE PLACES IS ESSENTIAL FOR A LOCAL BUSINESS TO SUCCEED ONLINE
You’re listening to the Clickable Marketing Podcast, where we help fired-up small business owners turn clicks into clients. Join us to discover how you can make more money online in less time. Now here’s your host, Mr. Web Marketing, Brad Hauck.
This is the Clickable Marketing Podcast. I’m Brad Hauck, and this is episode five. In this episode, I’m going to have a look at why Google Places are essential for a local business to succeed online.
I’d like to welcome anyone who’s just joined us for the first time, and for those of you who’ve been listening for a couple of weeks. Welcome back. If you haven’t subscribed already, please jump on iTunes or Stitcher and subscribe. I’d love to see you receiving this great information every week, and I also enjoy seeing everybody download the podcast. It gives me great pleasure, and also, it shows that at least some people are interested in what I’ve got to say.
A couple of updates to get things started. First of all, run through a little personal update. Let’s see, about a week ago, at 3:30 A.M., I got a fire call to a bush fire or a forest fire, which ended up being an all-day fire at a local area. For those of you who don’t know or maybe haven’t looked at the icon for the podcast, you’ll see that, actually, I’m a volunteer fire-fighter. I work on bush fires and forest fires here in Australia. We went out there, and quite a few trucks involved, and a good-sized fire to be ringed and dealt with. Everybody’s safe. No property harmed, and all good.
Secondly, I caught tonsillitis and pharyngitis last week, so I didn’t actually get a podcast recorded. In fact, I couldn’t talk at all. I was pretty unhealthy altogether.
Finally, my son who is a swimmer, won six golds and broke five records at our state swimming titles last weekend, so that was pretty amazing and great to watch. Here in Australia we have state titles only held once a year. In this case, it was short course titles. That was swimming in a 25-meter pool. Obviously, long courses are 50-meter pool. That’s some amazing times for such a young fellow. I’m very proud of him this week.
On the business side, trying out Raven Tools for the first time for reports for clients. They can bring in data from all sources, including AdWords and Analytics, but also social media data and all other different sources. One of the best things I’ve found is some of the information that they don’t collect live from AdWords, I can actually upload as a CSV file. That could be quite interesting and allow you to bring some stuff in.
On the Google front, they’ve gone from seven businesses loaded on the homepage when you do a search for a particular topic, such as a plumber or something in your local area, down to three. Next to the map now, generally there’s only three, not seven. That’s kind of cut the competition considerably to anyone who ranks well in Google Places. That’s one of the reasons I’m having a look at it this week, because it is such a great source of traffic for small business.
Lastly, a little program that I quite enjoy using called CuteRank, C-U-T-E-R-A-N-K, it’s free for one site; so if you’ve just got one website, you can load it into there, and it will give you the ranking of your site for specific keywords that you enter. You can pay for the professional version, which I quite enjoy, and you can load unlimited sites there. It’s a great piece of software, very quick, quite efficient, and allows you just to track where you’re ranking on those keywords if you want to do that.
WHAT IS GOOGLE PLACES FOR BUSINESS
In today’s episode, we’re going to look at why a Google Places listing is essential for a local business and their success online.
What is Google Places for Business? First of all, it’s a part of Google. It’s available to anyone. It’s completely free. Essentially, it’s the bit that shows up when you do a search on a map where it shows all the business names.
Often, when you do a search in Google, in the organic results, you’ll see that you have a set of AdWords at the top; and then underneath that, you might have three or four business listings with a map beside them; and then underneath that, you have more organic results. These are coming directly from Google Places or Google Places for Business. The name keeps evolving. They often sit right above all the organic results. Occasionally, you’ll see one or two organic results above them, but that’s changing. It does vary depending on where you are or whether you’re looking in a city, a state, a suburb, a town, how much competition there is, etc.
It’s a very fluid layout, and over the years, it has been a very, very powerful source of information for the small businesses that I work with. I know myself that it is absolutely worth doing, because you can do all the organic SEO that you want to do, but if you can get a good Places listing, and Google likes your listing, and you can get some reviews etc., you will see it right above everybody else.
One of the areas that is really powerful is on a mobile. As we know, cell phones and mobile phones these days are pretty well everywhere. When you’re out and about, and you’re looking for a restaurant, or you’re looking for a place to buy something locally, you might need some wood or you’re looking for a timber supplier or a hardware store, then the Google Places listings actually sit right up the top. They have a click-to-call button so you can either go to a person’s website, you can read about the business, or you can click to actually call them – very, very powerful from a mobile device point of view. It’s absolutely worth doing.
One thing I have noticed in the past is if you do get a Google Places listing and it shows up at the top of Google Places in the three or the seven, depending on what your country is seeing at this time, that can often remove your organic search listing. I’ve seen casing where people have been in the listings for the organic search and also in the Places, but in many, many cases what happens the minute you get a good Places listing, they remove you from the organic listings.
If you suddenly see yourself next to the map and you’re showing up there and then you look down and realise that you’ve disappeared below, don’t panic. It’s well and truly worth being up there over having that organic listing for your business. All your other pages will still rank, and you’ll still be able to find your site, but generally, that homepage style of first place ranking for what it is that you do or sell can disappear.
SETTING UP A GOOGLE PLACES LISTING
How do you go about setting up a Google Places listing? Relatively straightforward, but at times it can be confusing, and I suppose that the key here is that Google can make you jump through a lot of hoops. They move things around. Whereas once we just went to Google Places for Business, then they moved it to a different place, then they attached it to Google+. So the first steps can be a little bit difficult.
The thing that I suggest is search for your business by name, first of all. If it comes up and you see one of these map listings, underneath there you’ll see a Google+ symbol, and you’ll be able to click on that and go to that listing. If it’s already existing, you can actually claim the existing listing. If it’s already in Google Places, you’ll be able to actually click on there and claim it. To do anything, you need to be logged in to a Gmail account. Google, of course, loves to tie everything together; so to claim a listing or to add a listing, you have to be logged in to a Gmail account. If you don’t have one, which most people do these days, then create one for your business. It’s pretty simple, and it’s free.
Once you’ve found your listing, and you click to claim it, then you can go in, and there are all sort of areas you can edit. You can add your address, which is very, very important. You have to make sure that you don’t put a P.O. box; they will not accept that. You need to put a physical address, and you need to make sure that the little pointer that drops down, the pin that goes on the map is in the correct place. I always suggest to actually click on the pin and move it a little bit and then put it back at the right place. That way, it actually registers that the pin is in the correct position.
Once you’ve done that, filling your phone number and other contact details, then work your way through the rest of the information that Google needs. It asks for opening hours. It doesn’t matter whether you work from a home office or not. I’ll talk about that in a minute. Make sure you put opening hours on there even if it’s 9:00 – 5:00, or 8:00 – 3:00, or whatever it is, Monday to Friday. Fill them out because that shows up beside the listing. If you go on Google, do a search, and have a look, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Once you’ve done that, make sure that you set whether you deliver services to people or they come to you. If you deliver services to an area of approximately 50 miles or 50 kilometres around where your office is, you don’t actually have to have the pin showing. You’ll still show up in Google Places, but it won’t show that you’re working out of home. You can actually say, “Okay, we deliver this area. People don’t come to us.” Google will still show that up. Don’t be worried if you do work out of a home office, and you don’t want people coming to your home. You don’t need to do that in the settings.
Once you’ve done those settings, make sure that you start to work through the photos and videos. If you want maximum results from these, make sure that you fill out all the photos. If it takes 10 photos, add 10 photos. Now that Google Places has been updated, you can add product shots, you can add shots of your physical location, which I think is important. If you don’t have a physical location, like you are working at a home, then take shots of your vehicles with branding or out on site or something, and put them in there instead. Fill in the photos.
If you’ve got some videos, then you need to link to those direct from YouTube. Upload the videos to YouTube, and then link to them. I would suggest that you do at least one video – the more, the better. I’ve always found that the more complete you make a listing, the better it actually ranks.
Also, there’s an area where you need to go to put in a description. Make sure you fill those in. Don’t just put one sentence in there. Actually, put a couple of 100 words in there. Talk about your business, the services you provide, how long you’ve been in business, areas or names and places, like suburbs around you that you service, etc. Go through them and fill out all those details.
VERIFYING YOUR LISTING
Once you’ve got all of that done, you’ve filled in all the details and pictures, videos, etc., it’s essential that you then verify your listing. What Google wants to do is they want to work out that you are real, and that you are in that place. They are going to normally send you a postcard with a pin number on it. That four-digit pin or five-digit pin, depending on what it is, you’ll need that to verify the listing before it becomes live.
Sometimes, with old listings where someone’s claiming them, if the phone number’s accurate on there, you can actually press “phone me now,” and an automated system will actually phone you and give you the details, and you can enter the pin while you’re sitting there. In most cases, if you’re setting up a listing for the first time or you’re claiming it, you invariably have to change the number, and they always send the postcard.
It’s a bit hit-and-miss with the postcards. It seems like with some businesses, the postcards are there in about two weeks. This is in Australia. Obviously, it’s coming from the other side of the world. In America, they can arrive within days. On the other hand, I’ve had plenty of businesses where the postcard just never arrives. You need to go back in and re-verify. Click “send another postcard.” It can be quite frustrating. Don’t think that it’s you. It is the system. It is not reliable at the best of times, but it’s well and truly worth finding out and getting on with it, to try and get that postcard to get the pin number. Once you’ve got it, it does open up a world of business for you.
One thing I did forget to mention was that you need to choose some categories from the list they can give you. They’re not all perfect choices. If you’re in the web marketing business, where you do search engine optimization and AdWords, there really isn’t a category for you other than marketing. You’ve got to work with what you’re given. If you’re in accounting, you’ll find financial services. Work your way through, you can have multiple categories. Choose as many as you can that accurately describe your business, because these help Google pick where you rank, etc.
GETTING REVIEWS FOR YOUR LISTING
The final thing is once your listing is verified and it is showing in Google, it’s worth getting some of your clients to write some reviews if you can. They’ll generally need a Google account so they can log in and write those reviews, but the reviews make a big difference to whether you show at the top or not. Good quality reviews from real people make a difference to how you rank in the Google Places area.
It’s not always the case. I’ve got clients that sit at the top, and they’ve got no reviews. I’ve got other people who have stacks of reviews, and they don’t sit at the top. In the end, reviews is one of those methods that Google is using to verify that you’re a good quality business. On the other hand, the social proof when people read the listing is worth its weight in gold.
Social proof is really, really important these days. People are used to seeing reviews. They go to Amazon, they see reviews. They go to Trip Advisor, they see reviews. People will buy or not buy from you based on the reviews you have. Make sure that if you can, you can get some reviews.
That’s the basic set up of Google Places. If you’re confused, and you’re having trouble doing it, go and do a search. Google has some really good information on how to do this, and they can certainly help you. There are all sorts of help lines and videos, information that you can read through.
Take the time to go and setup your Google Places for Business listing. As a small business, there is no better form of advertising than this. It will cost nothing except a bit of time, and it can sit there and bring you traffic consistently for years, and years, and years, even if your website doesn’t rank all that well. You can even add specials and all sorts of things into your Google Places listing, all sorts of advantages.
There is analytics available on your Google Places listing. You can go in and get some insights into how many people have been there. I always enjoy reading the data. I think it’s important, and I think it helps you make decisions about your business and what else you can do to improve it.
SITE OF THE WEEK
That brings me to my site of the week. This is a new section that I want to bring in. I often find really cool sites in places that I like to hang out online. This week, I found one called appear.in. That’s the website, A-P-P-E-A-R.I-N. It’s a free service that allows you to set up video chat rooms. You can create a chat room with a name, and you can even claim that name, and anytime you want to link up with someone, you can invite them in via email, or you can just copy the link and send it to them. They can just join you directly via your browser.
It’s really, really simple to use. You just log in, you create a room. You copy and share the link. Hey presto! You’re all together, and it’s so simple. You don’t need any fancy software. You don’t need any professional webinar software. If you just want to get a small group of people, say three, four people together, it works perfectly well. It will work with up to eight people, and it’s completely free. That’s appear.in. Give it a go. It’s really good fun. Have a play with that, and see how you go.
That brings us to the end of episode five. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.
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If you have any questions, send them to me [email protected], or catch up with me on social media. I hang out on Facebook a lot or on Twitter, and of course, my username is mrwebmarketing.
I look forward to catching you next time.
