3 October 2009
Google Maps – Lots of Visibility for Free
Posted by admin under: Google Maps; Hometown Business; Small Business Advantage; Your Website .
People used to say, “I’m in the book,” meaning you could find them in the Yellow Page directory. Now it’s even more important to be found on the Internet. Whether or not you have a website (and you should), you’ll get more exposure by showing up in Google Maps when people in your town search for what you offer. Let Google Maps put your location on the map.
Any business whose store or office has a business location needs to take advatage of Google Maps. Easy to do; lots of advantages in drawing new customers. If you’re not there you’re losing the race—because your competitors are.
Google Local Search—6 Main Moving Parts
Philip Rozek
If I told you that to get visible in your local market you need a kick-butt website, you could easily hire 2 people: a programmer and a guy to write website content. Or if I said you need pay-per-click advertising, you could quickly find someone to do it for you.
But if you want to get found in the Google Local Search results, chances are good you wouldn’t know where to start, or even what to ask someone else to do for you.
I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m not even going to tell you what not to do. But I will tell you what you’re probably wondering about, which is “What are the basic things I need to rank highly?” and “How much will it cost me?”
6 basic things determine your visibility in Google Local Search (the first 5 of these you can do for free):
1. Your blue link next to the map. When you type in a local search term, you see a little map, with 10 blue links to the right. You get a link (which may or may not be visible to customers). That link serves as the title and billboard of your business, and you get to choose what it says. It matters.
2. Having a website. I could go into all kinds of detail, but the only thing to know is if you don’t have a website, chances are very good you’ll get outranked by any competitors who do have one.
3. A good website name. It matters what you call your website. I don’t have room to show you here how to get an effective name, but a great place to get ideas is Google Keyword Tool.
4. Customer reviews. It’s pretty obvious how positive reviews can help you (though there’s a specific way to go about getting them).
5. Additional content. You can have customers see your business hours, directions, and photos (of your business, products, etc.) that you upload. To the extent you add that kind of information, that’s a good thing.
6. Paid local ads. This is the only moving part you (obviously) can’t do for free. Depending on your market, it’s sometimes a good idea to get “Local Business Ads” in addition to the no-cost local search listing you already have. This is something you generally worry about later on, once you’ve got the other 5 moving parts working for you.
Now that you know the 6 moving pieces of Google Local Search, you have a much better sense of where to start or what to do next. You also know better what’s a waste of your money and what to get someone else to do for you.
Philip Rozek will show you 3 specific no-cost solutions you can use now to get a quick visibility boost in the Google Local Search results. You can implement these tactics (or get someone else to do it for you) by going to http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/
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