Google places how do I make money with this?

7 replies
Ok I got an email from Ryan Diess about Google places and it looks pretty good. I am sure you guys have already been doing this. Adding a listing in Google places seems very easy like just editing contact info and adding photos. Am I missing something?

Do you guys just cold call people about this? and if so whats the best way to approach this?

How much do you guys charge for this?

Any help is appreciated.
#google #make #money #places
  • Profile picture of the author vndnbrgj
    There is a lot more to it, than just creating a listing.
    I think that is one of the 10 steps I do for my Google Place's listings.
    The amount I charge is based upon how much a new customer is worth to the business.
    I like one or two new customers/clients to be able to pay for my service. In which case, every customer/client from then on, is all profit to the business.
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    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Depends on how competitive the area is as to what you need to do.

      Just listing someone does not put them at location a,b,c - which should be the ultimate goal. Ranking within google places.

      I just came across a search for dog groomer in a particular town. While the #1 ranking website is in position #2, Google places listings is first and the #1 ranked site is not on Google places

      There are only 3 listings in the google places - so It would now be easy to add this guy in, but taking him to be letter A is another story.
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      "May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"

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  • Profile picture of the author jrod014
    It all depends on the competition and their cost per client.

    You also have to take into account ONSITE SEO for local terms and adding local files to their server.

    If you have to optimize their website for local terms then that would be a little more. Also, adding their website and business listing to local directories is another thing to take into account.

    Jerry
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  • Profile picture of the author localdominator
    We have been getting most of our business through partnerships/agreements with people who do organic seo. We then offer the local/mobile side. If you are doing it all by yourself/manually, pretty soon you will be swamped with your time but want to add new customers and not have the ability. That is why we took a focused approach, created a system, and focus more on delivering results than going after all the sales, however, you do whatcha got to do right? As far as cost, we charge more based on the competitiveness of the industry but keep the cost really low so that people don't sweat having to pay. It becomes just another 'utility' bill that you just put on your card and forget unless it spikes on you and we have found that it has retained people for quite a while.
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    • Profile picture of the author DanRMorris
      Google places, for me, is really just a starting point at the beginning of most Local SEO discussions. It's quite helpful to be on the map for most business - especially short fuse businesses like plumbers.

      And unless you completely fill out the Google Places form, you're not guaranteed a spot at the top. I've got many clients who have complete profiles, several reviews. good page rank and incoming links and still can't top an unverified account that has almost no information.

      Like Facebook, Google places is somewhat out of your control.

      Charging customers for local SEO services is all about the goal. What is the goal? I don't have a single client that has the same goal. They might tell you they just want more clients, but if you dig deeper most have other goals.

      My real estate client wanted more traffic to her website, but in reality she just wanted more clients. We devised a pretty handy Craigslist strategy that does extremely well for that. Traffic to her website is still nill.

      We've got another client who insisted she wanted more clients, but digging deeper we discovered that she really harbored a desire to be a local celebrity of sorts. She wants to be the person they talk to on the news when there's something brewing in her niche. More clients is certainly part of that goal, but she was very happy with a good PR campaign, followed up by SEO. Her TV and paper appearances are creating the new clients.

      Don't just go to businesses and tell them you'll get them to the top of Google. Most people don't even know how to run their own businesses to start with. Getting them to pay you for something that's ultimately not going to pay them is just rude. Most need a local seo strategy combined with an autoresponder/email marketing strategy combined with proper messaging.

      Then you'll not only get happy customers. You'll get crazy cool referrals.
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      • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
        # 1: Rankings on google places are no longer just google places listings.

        They now also include websites.

        So in many cases if you want to get a business ranked high on google places you will have to:

        - Claim their listing in google places including choosing the categories very carefully.

        - You'll also have to have their address verified which requires a call to the business number with a verifying pin code or google will send a postcard (which can take forever to arrive).

        - Add content to google places including photos, videos, getting happy customers to place reviews and any other content you can.

        - Getting the business name and physical address listed on as many local directories, local sites and related sites as you can.

        - Having a website that's optimized with multiple pages of high quality, highly targeted content (including content that's optimized for local keyword phrases).



        It's not too hard to learn how to do a google places listing. Do one for yourself or a friend who has a business...or both.



        # 2: I always love this fantasy that people have that somehow if you come up with a new service idea the sea parts and prospects come miraculously flocking to you.

        A "new" service idea doesn't change anything.

        (Just as an aside providing google maps listings is not even vaguely new to the members at offlinebiz.com. We started talking about it seriously over 2 years ago and we have a whole section of threads and resources devoted to providing the service to business clients...getting top rankings etc etc. The general market jumping on the bandwagon over 2 years on is entertaining to Offlinebiz.com gold members who've been making money from this for years).

        At the core of the model of selling your services to businesses you still have to get in touch with a business owner in some way and at some point you're going to have to talk to him.

        Your conversion from prospect to client will be higher if you learn to ask questions and listen and provide customized solutions based on the information you gather.

        If you talk to a business owner with a preconceived idea of what you're going to sell it seriously reduces your chances of getting hired because you'll be in sales mode instead of being in information gathering, rapport building mode.

        So ask questions, listen, make suggestions until you hit on something the business owner gets excited about and run with that.

        You should be investing most of your time asking questions and listening.


        # 3: You can get in touch with business owners in many different ways...

        business networking meetings, talking to business owners you already know, talking to business owners your friends and family know, asking everyone you talk to who they know, walking into businesses and talking to the people you meet

        snail mail, email, phone,

        The most important thing if you want to make money is to do a lot of this and to work on your skills at talking to business owners (which basically requires asking a lot of questions, genuinely listening and being aware of where the business owner is at emotionally through the whole process).


        Kindest regards,
        Andrew Cavanagh
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        • Profile picture of the author RKCastillo
          We have been using the Local Lead Maximizer software to find unverified Google Places pages.

          We really try to focus on the unverified place pages on the first page of Google because these ones are the ones that are pre-indexed, pre-ranked and already getting traffic.

          You just need to do the optimizing that others have talked about on this post already.

          Add photos and videos. Get reviews and Citations with the same info as your Google Place page listing.

          And of course links back to your website with the same keyword as the categories as that is really important.

          The Local Lead Maximizer also looks at the categories used in all the listings in the "Google 7 Pack" if they are already relevant to the listings on the front page. It makes it easy for you to optimize for those category keywords.
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