Google Places (One of the ABC’s of Marketing)
Since we’re going mobile soon on our trip back to New England, I have been narrowing down the services I plan to pitch to RV parks, golf courses, and other small business scattered around the country. The easier to explain and deliver they are, the more likely I am to find interested proprietors along the way. Sure I could make them a homepage video, maybe write some copy or a press release, set them up a facebook page or advertising campaign, show them how to use twitter for business, but help with their search engine visibility might be one of the most in demand.
The most simple, obvious and deliverable item is helping folks fill out their Google Places listing. It’s amazing how many legit businesses do not have a viable listing. Hopefully I’ll find some folks who want to change that. I covered this topic in June. Here’s a link to the Google Places post.
When’s the last time you used the yellow pages? They keep getting delivered, and somehow sales people keep selling ads in them, but their usage has dropped off to almost none. Search engines have replaced them nearly to extinction. The question then becomes, how do you show up when people type in “your service Bend Oregon” into google. If you do show up, how do you improve your listing, or make needed changes if they are required? Maybe you’d like to add photos. Maybe your location on the map is incorrect (this is common).
You should add your business to Google Places, which used to be called Google business listings. There are also a number of ways to help your business start to rank higher than others in this space. Some are related to whether your site is registered with google, or properly sitemapped, or the weight of your inbound links, or the metatags associated with your pages, or a variety of other factors.
Either way, find out how you do on a number of terms, decide if you are happy with it, and either do something about it or work with someone who can do it for you. That is.. if you’d like customers to be able to find you properly. Want some help? I’d be happy to.
