Should I Add Google Places to my Local SEO Strategy?

With competition between businesses increasing, it is often hard for small business owners to find a way to compete with larger corporations with seemingly endless advertising budgets. However, thanks to a change in the way people are looking for products and services, there is a way that you can boost the visibility of your small business and boost your sales without spending a dime: Google Places. Google Places is a service that Google offers that helps businesses of all shapes and sizes rank higher in local searches, which is especially important for businesses who depend on walk in customers for a majority of their business. Here's how it works:

Let's say you are a business that sells the best pizza in your area. There are customers all over your area looking for pizza for lunch, but aren't sure where to go. They open their smartphone's browser and type in "pizza" where their search engines will then display a list of pizza places that are located within a five mile radius of where they are standing. Their browser is pulling this information from local directories like Google Places. And, if you don't have a listing, you are missing out on tons of sales every day.

The good news is that you don't have to miss out anymore. It is simple to claim your Google Places listing and boost your local search visibility. The best thing about this very powerful advertising opportunity is that it doesn't cost you a thing. All you have to do is look your business up on Google Places, claim your listing and complete your profile. The entire process will take you less than an hour, but the payoff will be exponential.

Claiming Your Place

In order to claim your business listing, you will simply need to search for your business within the Google Places application. Then you will need to create an account. From there you can add all of the pertinent information about your business such as your business's name, address, telephone number, website address, email address, hours of operation and more. Marketing experts will tell you that you need to add things like pictures and videos to your listing as not only do these media elements make your profile more interesting to your customers, it also allows Google to put extra emphasis on your listing when it decides how to rank your listing in comparison to others. And, as you know, the higher up your business ranks in a search engine results page, the more traffic you'll get, which leads to more sales and more money in your pocket.

Claiming your Google Places listing is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Claiming various directory listings is important, but without Google Places, you are simply missing out on one of the most important and easiest things you can do to promote your business online. Visit today and claim your Google Places profile and watch your ranking, taffic and even sales soar.