There are almost 50,000,000 Google Places pages – made by Google – for existing businesses.
They used data found in local areas to list the business name, address, and phone number if it was available. Next, in the spirit of Google and all of its knowledge and capabilities, it opened the doors to pull information into these pages from all over the internet.
This is why if you go to your own business’s Google Places Page, you may see that it has not been owner verified and yet it may have images of your business, references from other websites where you are mentioned or have a link back to your website, and even customer reviews. Some business owners are shocked to find there are negative reviews listed on their Google Places page that hasn’t yet been claimed.
Google uses these Places pages to list businesses in local areas. This is so that when someone goes to Google and searches for a dentist in Pittsburgh, PA they will get a list of dentists to review. If you are a Pittsburgh dentist, you want to be at the top of the Google results.
Another thing that Google did just recently is to integrate local search results with the organic listings along the left side of a Google search results page. These are the more trusted results that 70-90% of searchers click on. The paid ads on the right side of the page are clicked far less. This is very good news because in the past it has taken a lot of hard work (and sometimes a great deal of money) to get top organic listings.
Google is thinking more local today. A big part of the reason for that is smart phones and how many people use them and want local search results. Immediate results that help them in their present location.
The Google pages that get verified AND OPTIMIZED are going to be the listings that get the top rankings.
It is easy to verify your listing. In fact, you can do it in a few minutes. The optimizing part takes more time and many business owners outsource this to services that do this kind of work daily and will get results fast. It involves adding images and videos to your listing, a coupon if applicable to the business, placement in the right categories, an optimized description listing, citations (these are mentions of your website on local sites and other relevant – targeted – sites all over the internet), and customer reviews.
For most local business owners, their day consists of running their business. They may do certain kinds of advertising or marketing ongoing, in order to bring in new customers. But the internet is still very new for these purposes. Finding a reliable service to help you with this work and help you get new prospects calling you and new customers established is a Win-Win opportunity today.
Phone books and local newspapers are not being used the way they were in the past. People access the search engines on their computers and their smart phones to look for business information. Google is the primary search engine used. Google Places is very new and that is why most of the pages have not been verified. That will change soon and businesses will be in competition with each other, in their local area, to be placed at the top when people look for them.
You can get started now by taking the time to verify your Google Places page and taking the steps you need to optimize it.
To verify your Google Places listing on your own, you will need a gmail email account. These are free to get. Just Google free gmail account or if you can’t figure it out, email me and I can send you an invitation. Next, while signed into your gmail account, open another browser and go to google.com. Google the name and location of your business and when you see the search results, they will look like one of the options below.
If your business shows up on a regular Google search page with location markers (red images with letters inside), as shown in the first image, simply click on the ‘Place page’ link – an example is on the bottom right of the first image below. It will take you to your Google Places listing and at the top you will see ‘Business Owner?’ if it has not been verified. Click to verify.
If your business does not come up on a regular Google search page, click on ‘Maps’ at the top and look for your business in the maps area. You may have to scroll through a few pages. What you will be looking for is the link next the A & B listings in this second image – the ‘more info’ link. It will take you to your Google Places page and you can look for that same link there that says ‘Business Owner?’. Click to verify your business.
Google is going to ask you to fill in certain business information, choose categories, and write a description. It will also suggest that you upload images and videos. This is part of optimizing your Google Places page. Next are the coupons, citations, and reviews I mentioned previously. The more work you do, the better you will rank. Even if you were surprised (and happy) to see your business listing at the top, once businesses start to verify and optimize their listing, you may not keep your top spot if you don’t do the same.
One last thing I wanted to point out. In the second image, under the dentist that is listed as B in the location marker, shows 52 reviews. When I clicked on the Places page, it had not been verified and yet Google pulled in 52 reviews from around the internet. Unfortunately, many of these (at least at the top – I didn’t take the time to scroll through them all – are negative. This happens more than you might think and it’s a shame but people tend to take more time to write the negative than to sing your praises. You have to ASK for the good reviews!
Until you claim your listing, and optimize it, you aren’t addressing what’s being shown about you. You aren’t taking the opportunity to tell the good things about your business and letting prospects and customers get to know, like and trust you.
Feel free to share this information with friends or clients you have that may be small business or local business owners.
If you have additional questions, please contact us through the Contact link above, or visit our page where we can help you with your Google Places Page (your free business listing).
