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My first client's Google Places is 93% complete...now what

by zigzag10
9 replies
Hey guys,

I landed my first client last week doing local SEO for a dentist. Based on what most have you have been saying, our monthly agreement of $300 a month is a bargain. Anyways I was more than happy to land my first client. I told him I would take care of his on site/off site SEO and optimize his google places...

According to google places, I have completed 93% of his listing I just need to add videos to get it 100% optimized. Other than getting him reviews on to his google places listing, is there anything that I am missing? I keep seeing posts, ads, discussions on how to perfectly optimize a listing and am not sure what I am missing. any advice is greatly welcomed as most of you unknowingly or not helped me land my first client!
#93% #client #completenow #google #places
  • Profile picture of the author The SEO Kid
    You should start looking into citations
    Basically submit your client to a hell of alot of business directories.
    Don't forget your niche directories aswell.
    Here in Australia you would submit it to like truelocal,hot frog,yelp just to name a few.

    Also try to get your business in Dmoz people say its useless now but google loves it if your clients business is in there.

    So you are looking for
    - basic business directories e.g Yellow pages or Truelocal

    - Geo Business Directories e.g new york business directory

    - Industry Business Directories e.g Dental Business

    P.S don't be afraid of paid directories. Google love paid directories.But check the website info first like PR level if its under 4 I wouldn't bother. Either charge the client extra or in the future have a higher set up fee to cover the directory costs.
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    • Profile picture of the author JayNine
      Originally Posted by dalidy View Post

      You should start looking into citations
      Basically submit your client to a hell of alot of business directories.
      Don't forget your niche directories aswell.
      Here in Australia you would submit it to like truelocal,hot frog,yelp just to name a few.

      Also try to get your business in Dmoz people say its useless now but google loves it if your clients business is in there.

      So you are looking for
      - basic business directories e.g Yellow pages or Truelocal

      - Geo Business Directories e.g new york business directory

      - Industry Business Directories e.g Dental Business

      P.S don't be afraid of paid directories. Google love paid directories.But check the website info first like PR level if its under 4 I wouldn't bother. Either charge the client extra or in the future have a higher set up fee to cover the directory costs.
      This. Citations are KEY to helping them out. Google Places puts a lot of authority on citations. Just make sure:

      The name, address, and phone number are identical on your Places page, as well as all of the local directories you can get into.

      I'd also highly recommend getting videos on there. For some reason (I think the fact Google owns YouTube has a lot to do with this) Google places (haha get it?) a lot of authority on videos. It's also not a bad upsell to the customer, and usually something they enjoy doing (as making videos can be fun).

      Get them to shoot (or shoot for them) 5 or so videos that you can put on YouTube and places. SEO the hell out of the videos, and the places page will rank higher.

      Oh, good job landing your first client!
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      • Profile picture of the author zigzag10
        guys thanks for the priceless advice.

        Jsut so we are clear, citations are pretty much listings in various business directories correct?

        Do reviews count as citations as well or is that all they are, reviews?
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      • Profile picture of the author zigzag10
        guys thanks for the priceless advice.

        Jsut so we are clear, citations are pretty much listings in various business directories correct?

        Do reviews count as citations as well or is that all they are, reviews?
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  • Profile picture of the author The SEO Kid
    Not sure if reviews count as citations but they certainly boost the quality of the citation.
    Its a must for google places ,But never fake reviews.
    Encourage customers to post a review on the dentists google listing.
    E.g. In your case you could give out 10 free dental check ups for the first 10 people to leave reviews. or a free tooth brush whatever your clients happy with.

    or something like that

    If your already have written testimonials put them on a slideshow and upload them as a video to youtube. Just an idea
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    • Profile picture of the author JayNine
      Originally Posted by dalidy View Post

      Not sure if reviews count as citations but they certainly boost the quality of the citation.
      Its a must for google places ,But never fake reviews.
      Encourage customers to post a review on the dentists google listing.
      E.g. In your case you could give out 10 free dental check ups for the first 10 people to leave reviews. or a free tooth brush whatever your clients happy with.

      or something like that

      If your already have written testimonials put them on a slideshow and upload them as a video to youtube. Just an idea
      It depends upon where the reviews are. Google reviews, unlikely. Yelp reviews, absolutely. A citation is simply a listing of the name address and phone number of the company across the internet. For example, a listing in a local chamber of commerce isn't a directory (like Yellow Pages) but it will still count as a citation. Or on someone else's website (like if you had a celebrity or blogger come in and they had a great experience, you can ask them if they wouldn't mind writing about it). Another great place for citations is in the description of YouTube videos. Pretty much anywhere you can get the name address and phone number (with the obvious "no black hat" approach).

      I do want to add my two cents on the comment about giving coupons away for reviews. While this does work, it is technically a violation of the terms and conditions of most review sites (especially Google). Does this mean that if you do it you'll get banned? No. However, all it takes is for a competitor to know this and report you and you're in a very bad situation. It hasn't happened to me personally, but one of my clients was reported for this practice (before I got involved) and they lost a lot of positive reviews as a result. Recovering from that was a nightmare.
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  • Profile picture of the author zigzag10
    So I know its a BIG no-no to post fake google reviews but how does google actaully verify that it is fake. Say if I was to ask my brother, sister, best friend, (or whomever in this case) to go to google and write a review for my dentist client. How on earth can google detect that is a fake. To be clear, I am not saying I would do these things but want to know how the system works.
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    • Profile picture of the author JayNine
      Originally Posted by zigzag10 View Post

      So I know its a BIG no-no to post fake google reviews but how does google actaully verify that it is fake. Say if I was to ask my brother, sister, best friend, (or whomever in this case) to go to google and write a review for my dentist client. How on earth can google detect that is a fake. To be clear, I am not saying I would do these things but want to know how the system works.
      Reading this will probably help: Removals of Google Places reviews - Places Help

      They have programs and algorithms. Plus, once you know what to look for, it's really not that hard to spot a "fake" review. I can spot them pretty easily. For example, one client of mine actually wrote a review for his company. He even used his name... A competing client (for a different client of mine) obviously hired someone/created fake profiles. When you looked at the Google profile for someone who left a review, they were leaving reviews all over the country (sometimes in the same day). So either they have a time machine, can be in two places at once, or the review was fake.

      On top of that (even though I don't think you plan on doing this) think about this:
      You can get your friends to leave reviews, but what about down the road? What happens when you have 10 clients and you're using friends on all ten. All that needs to happen is ONE of those clients is flagged, and all of the reviews go tumbling down.

      On top of that, put yourself in the mind of the client. If you hired someone to some type of 3rd party marketing for you, and you found out they were doing practices to jeopardize your business' reputation (in Google, one of the most important marketing tools) would you be happy?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kung Fu Backlinks
    I'm just going to say it... never suggest getting friends and family to post reviews, never offer to post reviews for the client, never suggest taking postcard reviews and upload them for the client, and certainly never suggest offering any incentive to gather reviews. It's unethical and Google will certainly punish you for it.

    How likely is it they will find out?

    That's not the point. Conduct yourself in an unethical manner and you'll be building your business on very shaky ground.

    Best practice is to coach your client to ASK for reviews (there's 90% of the battle right there) and then put a system in place that makes it easy for customers to follow through.

    That's all you need.
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