Google Places Optimization Tactics That Will Help You Win More Business!

Do you have a local business? Are you presently using Google places for that business? How about Google places optimization, are you effectively optimizing your Google places listings to help you attract and win more business?

Want to know how, right?

Then read this piece and you will discover some powerful ways you can become more successful using Google places optimization for your business!

Google Places for Business

In recent times, more and more consumers have turned to using local searches when shopping on the internet. Indeed, this could be attributed to the increase of the use of smartphones and other mobile devices. Consumers using their mobile hand held smartphones now use the search engines to locate businesses where they can, quickly and easily, meet their essential needs.

This should be of interest to you if you have a local business because using Google places for that business is now a vital thing. But more than just having a Google places listing, optimizing your listing will increase the chances of receiving more clicks.

Google places, a recent Hotspot launch by Larry Page and his company Google, has made the search engine to enter into the local recommendation space. With recent enhancements and changes, you can now see a map clubbed with local businesses over their advertisements just at its right side. The combination of Hotspot and Google Places is helping consumers in making buying decisions and on patronizing different local businesses.

Now, more and more businesses are turning to Google places and this is really making marketing on Google Places very competitive. For this reason if you are using Google places, it is important that you device creative and optimization ways to make your listings stand out from the competition. Taking such a position will help you win more business and also take your business to the next level.

Here are some powerful ways you can win more business through Google Places optimization.

1.    Ensure your Google Listing comes with 100% score

You can find more than 20 different fields in the Google Places listing. Unfortunately, a majority of businesses do not care to fill these different fields. Hence what you see at the end is a wide margin in the Google Places’ first page results.

Making sure to fill every necessary field when listing your local business, will give you leverage over your competition.

2.    Optimize your Google places listings through clients’ review

If you have ten different local business competitors in your market with all of them carrying 100% scores over your listing, do you know what Google would use to rank all these businesses?

The only one element of your profile which is open ended in a majority of cases is certainly the review section. If you have more number of reviews from your clients, this will certainly help you in winning the battle at the end. Hence it’s imperative to encourage your clients to write some reviews on your Google Places listing.

Of course, these reviews will also give your listing some SEO bite since your keyword phrase (possibly your product or brand name) may be used a number of times on these reviews!

3.    Incorporate product or service related keywords in listing description

When using Google places, businesses are expected to list one or two cities or suburbs that are concerned with their target audience. This is a good place to use your relevant keywords. You can optimize your Google places listings by simply implementing proven SEO principles while writing your description.

4.    Ensure you are listed in the local phone book

This may sound a bit weird to you; however, the fact is Google has a knack for looking at some established sources when generating their ranking results. One of these is local business information like the local phone book. This stands to reason therefore that, if you are not listed in your local phone book, this will limit your ranking in the first page.

5.    Ensure you are listed in all the top directories

Just like the phone book, you are supposed to be listed in all the major directories including Bing, Yelp, Yahoo, Hotfrog, Best of the Web, and Foursquare. In order to find out your score simply visit Getlisted.org, it will also help you in taking benefits from the free listings at all the top search engines.

Wrapping It Up

The above Google Places optimization tactics are not only important but has become mandatory in today’s cut throat competition. If you want to give your small sized local business some internet marketing power then abide by these tactics. Use them any day and they will help your business listings to remain visible on the first page of the SERPs!

Over to you: What other Google places optimization tactics have you ever used? Feel free to share your experiences, or questions if you there is any, in your comments below.