Google Local Business Listing

It's all about location, relevancy, and ratings.

You may move up or down, depending on how close or
far apart other businesses are.

There is no sandbox, unless you consider that users
ratings are causing you to fall. This could mean other
businesses are getting better ratings than yours.
Get customers to write a review.

You may need to optimize regarding your exact location.

It's all about location, relevancy, and ratings.

Forget backlinks. They don't count for google maps.

If you are on page 3, you may need to adjust your listing.
I don't think anyone gets to page 3.

Paul

I am sure you are right. I don't think most searchers even know how to get to page 2. I think most of them look at what's on the first page and that's it. My hunch, though, is that if a company can get both first page on Google maps and first page in the organic listings, that would be pretty powerful in terms of giving a local company legitimacy.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Regards,
Dino

if you want to optimize your business locally in any country the very first thing you need to do is to host your website in the particular country where u wanna ur website to get locally optimized for.....like i m having business in India and i want my business website to be optimized in India and Canada then very first thing i will do is, i will host my website in India and canada..

Although I have never tried it before, I read that building links directly to your google maps listing should get it to appear higher in local listing.

Also, getting reviews generally helps.

Paul is pretty much right on with this one.

Just to add a little more I've found that I get the best results when I provide as much info about the company as possible including images, videos, etc. The more content the better. Here is a quick guideline I compiled from various sources that I have tested and generally follow to get good results on a regular basis:

1. Content – Provide as much information as possible for a company description. This can be no more than 200 characters so try to get as much information as possible in that amount of space. Be sure to list all areas of business you work in.
2. Make sure your phone number and address are accurate. It is not only important for your potential customers to find you once the listing is active, but also is required for verification by Google.
3. Provide your website url.
4. Let em know if you provide services only at your location or if you serve customers at their location.
5. Provide an accurate radius of where you do business.
6. Provide operating hours.
7. Photos – Provide as many images as possible (up to 10) relating to your business. Logos, site photos and images of products you work with are all good options.
8. Videos – Provide as many video clips as you have (up to 5) and they should be uploaded to Youtube so you can use the youtube link.
9. Provide any other additional information you can such as: Parking available on site, types of brands carried, specialized training or certifications, etc.
10. Entice your customers to leave reviews once the listing is active.
11. Coupons – The addition of a coupon is not only effective in helping your rank, but also can be useful to help gain more click thrus and conversions when visitors come to the listing.

I know these aren't ground breaking or anything, but I have seen so many google places results that are lacking many if not most of these so I thought I'd offer it up. I find it to be a good guide to go by.

Good Luck

OK Warriors, just stumbled across this and what timing! If you are into local business marketing you will love it. And, please note that I have been on the forum for a while and have never been thanked for anything. Here's my big chance..

Local Search Ranking Factors

THE Supafly

Back atchya with the thanks. Yeah, David is an awesome resource. He's making me look like a star with my offline clients. Thanks for the input.

Hi Supafly

thanks for bringing this up- I used to rank first page for the term "tutors in Singapore" on Google Local Listings, but after updating the address 10 hours ago, i am nowhere to be found. Is Google punishing me for an honest genuine change in address or am i sandboxed?

The actual reasoning of 'how a map ranks' is still a mystery.

Some maps rank well for some keywords and some don't. I have seen unverified maps rank with 0 reviews for competitive keywords, while well optimized maps full of content rank on 2nd page.

Getting citations has shown a slight improvement for some of my maps, but how we can optimize those citations for our desired keywords is still unknown.

There are maps which I have done everything that I can possibly think of, (keywords, categories, pics, videos, reviews, citations) but they just refuse to rank.

Some maps have shown a google-map-dance. They rank #1-#5 for about a week, and then they slip away.

The Local Search Ranking Factor link is an excellent guide to optimizing Google Places accounts. There's nothing magic about it; you follow what the guide says, don't try to spam the profile, and you'll rank in the locale that the business is in.

And there's the rub. Many people don't get that sometimes they'll show pretty high in the Places results, and other times, they won't show up until very far down. It's all about geolocation. Your location is the biggest factor to ranking well for Places results. If someone across town is searching for "24 hour pharmacy", you're not going to show up if you're not close to that potential customer. To do so would not be in the user's best interest when there are 10 all-night drug stores between you and the searcher.

Additionally, I've found the quality of the site itself to be a huge hole in the process that most people don't realize is involved. If your Places profile is tight, but still not where you want it, work on getting more out of your site.

local search result will change frequently, especially with the contributions from ratings, comments, etc.

dont build many reviews from the same IP

Agreed, leaving a review for yourself is common, I'm sure, but would highly advise against leaving more than one. If you do, doing it from the same IP address would indeed be a big mistake. I doubt there is much of a penalty, but Google probably will not give you credit for them.

Would anyone be interested in a Warrior Forum Group for local business marketing? There are a couple, sort of. None that really get much activity from what I can tell. I don't want to add to our competition, but I think local business marketing is getting pretty hot regardless so we might as well learn from each other - especially now, with Google Places still in it's nascent stage.

Your thoughts?

i have to say it sounds like many comments on this thread are just guesses. There is an art to getting the top spot in google places. It would take some time to explain exactly how it is done but i assure you that almost everyone here is missing it. I have gone after extremely competitive phrases for my customers such as LAS VEGAS TICKET BROKERS and i have had no problem getting the top spot. You can check out the results if you like. I get the top spot consistantly and i normally get the top spot in under 15 minutes. There is an art to it.

i don't agree about the part about building back links to the business profile url will not help with ranking. If you do some research on the back links to the top results for competitive niches such as dentist or lasik or cosmetic surgery in the major cities all of those top local ranking has a ton of back links to them. Use backlinkwatch and check it out...

Location address, reviews, coupon can all easily be planted by the business owners so Google gotta add all factors and I'm sure they will be depending on their infamous back links.

just my .02

Yeah, I'll bite as well...

The top spot in 15 minutes? Even the experts I've studied who have been working on local business listings for years can't make that claim. I'm having trouble believing it, but not knowing you I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt. What are we all missing?

Regards,
Dino

OK, I had a chance to work with Ken (Findit1504) and he taught me some very important steps to take for my Google Places listings that I had previously overlooked. My client is now ranked in the 7 pack for 4 out of 5 of my keyword categories as well as some residual long tailed keyword phrases that seemed to catch the eye of Google. We were able to accomplish this in less than 30 minutes.

His product launch is August 27th and I expect it to be a very good system. I plan to buy it. Go to his thread to learn more. I've also been posting about it in the Local Warrior Group.

Regards,
Dino

I'm a bit late in this thread...

But to get the best ranking in Google maps you're going to need to fill out the business profile completely, meaning pictures, videos, reviews, all of that...

The more you can get, the higher you'll rank.

Location is important, but it's really not as important as people think. One of my clients is ranking for fort worth custom builder with a white settlement address. Google fort worth custom builder. My client McBee Homes is in the A slot. If you know how to optimize the listing and follow a few other critical steps, you can rank regardless of location.

Today number of customers purchases their products through Google, Yahoo and Bing in their local area. To get the audience in local search you need to advertise your local business.

I honestly think Google Places is going to become pure "pay to play", and I just don't see it heading in any other direction. They already rolled out the tags and what not, it is only a matter of time before google local becomes the next adwords (essentially meaning those companies with the fattest wallets win).

As my own online/offline business revolves around seo organic and maps listings first and foremost, I do hope it does not go this route...time will tell though. PPC works for many offline businesses wonderfully ($$$), but in most of those same niches you can generate enough organic $$$ traffic to satisfy your clients. And PPC is good to test offline keywords as well, but I still don't really focus on it soley (especially with offline clients). There will surely be an opportunity in everything goog thows at us though.

The Places Team has been hunting down a lot of businesses lately and I just feel it is only a matter time before our many Places solutions will be worthless. What direction do you guys see the local maps listings going? It seems lately out here on the west coast I'm sometimes seeing larger spacing for the maps listings, basically taking the organics out of the picture as well. Spoooky

Try ensuring they display their address in the pages of their site...

Use the hcard micro format for their address (Google it!)

Ask them to 'encourage' their customers/clients to leave positive reviews via a google account...

Avoid spamming the title of their listing with keyterms!

Fill out as much of their profile as possible!

Pop up a video and some images on their profile...

If you do the above, it should be enough for all but super touch niches

Don't place too many links in a short amount of time, Google and the other search engines are getting good at spotting this

Google is going to keep most of the things the same unless they rewrite their entire search algo...Which to this point would not make sense but they could. Local sites are a big factors and this is why. Search engines and just about all of them use.....Data Providers. These are the guys who do market research, business stats, warehouse records of small biz to large biz and then they share that information with phone books, fire, police, BBB, and probably hundred different agencies, and with 4.3 million small businesses and growing, where do you think Google and other search engines get their results? You gotta, data providers. Data providers in this case would be map sites, review sites, local sites, gov sites, BBB sites and others alike. But mostly local directories. I have seen this mostly with Google.

As far as local citations and links, keep building links to for the sake of many other search engines and organic listings. I dominate 1 slot and 50% of the rest of the organic and I have not touch anything for about 2-3 weeks and that is because like I have been saying, I have gone into product development. I was also on the 2nd page and then it moved around, but I know that local directories, data providers and computers in general take time to filter and work its way through the internet. But I am on the first page again and I knew I would be. I think it has to constant build but also review sites and map sites.

Also, if your site is on the third page or second page, adjust listing, ping, but ping the listing and not the whole search query url. Also, I highly recommend you get more local sites pointing to your main url. And not the local listing, it is pretty pointless I believe and it looks very unprofessional to your potential customers which will eventually see your listing, only use google local listing if you do not have a website for your client. At least hook them with a free website on a free hosting platform that is custom designed.

But more local sites I have personally seen improve.