Google Places & Hotpot Optimization

Does your business have a google places listing. If not, create one now. If you already have a google places listing use it to the fullest. Google places have been very effective in terms of driving business and traffic to local business. There are very simple things a business owner can do utilize Google places

Google Place is changing every other week. A business owner needs to make sure that they check the business listing very often and keep the listing up-to-date.

Main things to focus to make Google places perform.

A)     Google Places Profile

• Company Name – Don’t modify the name, use the exact the name of the property
• Main Phone Number – Don’t use 800 or tracking number. Use the exact local phone number of the business
• Description – Use this section to best describe the business
• Categories – No city names, use appropriate category to describe the business
• Additional Field details – Add additional information about the business for instance parking etc.

B)      Website and Website Optimization

With the recent changes to google algo, website has become very important. Just having a website is not important anymore. Below are some of the important things to take on the website for making Google place perform better.

• Optimize the website for location
• Keywords and location should be in the Title tag on home page
• Include NAP (Name, address and Phone number) on the home page
• Hcard on website footer.

C)      Citations and Links

Citations are another major factor that helps Google places with better positioning and placement on search results. Citations mean, mention of Name, Address and Phone number of the business on trusted sources. Below are the major sites to get citations from. A link from all the sources will be much helpful.

• BOTW Local
• Superpages.com
• InfoUSA
• Insiderpages
• Local.com
• Localeze.com
• Openlist
• Yelp
• Merchantcircle
• Citysearch

D)     Reviews

Review has become one of important ranking factors for Google place listing. A business owner should look at all the reviews posted about the business all various review websites to see what people are taking about the business. As a practice owners should ask customers to write about their experience on various channels to build quantity of reviews.

By reviewing the reviews a business owner

• Can engage with customers by responding to their review both positive and negative.
• Can know customers grievances and improve service or product.

Conclusion: Create google places listing, build citations, links, reviews and optimize the website for business to take complete advantage of local search.

Spakers: Brian Combs
Moderator:  Mark Knowles

Contributed by – Justin Varghese, ROI Manager, Milestone Internet Marketing Inc.