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Google Maps, Google Local, Google Plus, Google Places, where to begin?

by gzibell
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey everyone.

I was hoping for some advice. What is the best way to move up in the google local listings. What is it the magic 7? I have been reading everything that I can find. I have been adding exact match structered citations. I have geotagged and uploaded multiple photos. Slowly building reviews. Only 5 but that's more than the competition. I have a local phone #. Haven't seen any change in where I am showing up. 3rd page of maps results. Any suggestions?
#begin #google #local #maps #places
  • Profile picture of the author gzibell
    Does a google plus business page override a Google Places Listing? I had to edit my Google local listing due to some things being outside of the quality quidlines. Since I have made the edit my listing on google places has been sitting in pending review. It has been a few weeks. In this period I created a google plus business page.

    My Google Plus business page is live and displaying on Google Maps, When searching for keywords related to my business my Google Plus page is showing the results.

    I am trying to improve my Google Maps listing and say somewhere that having offers (through google places) will gelp improve you listing. I created 2 offers in my places account even though it is pending review.

    Will these offers be available to customers? Does google places sync with google plus for business or are they completely separate?

    Any input would be greatly appreciated.
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    • Profile picture of the author raviv
      Google Plus business pages are more recent than Google places listings. Google has upgraded its dashboard. Any recent Google plus pages you may have created will be upgraded to this dashboard with all features available. The existing Google Places listings will be upgraded over time to the new dashboard.

      Since local search results occupy valuable real estate in the Google SERPs, it is worth the effort if you are a local business to reach out to your local customers. Having great offers is the ultimate way to convert a visitor into a buyer. Pl look at it from conversion point of view and not optimization perspective. It is humans who are going to buy your product and not search engine bots. The better your offer, the higher your conversion.

      Will these offers be available to customers? Does google places sync with google plus for business or are they completely separate?

      It is taking a lot of time for local listing edits to be upgraded in the older Google Places version. You will see your edits approved after some time. Google Places will be upgraded to the new Google Plus dashboard in future.

      As for the magic you are after to get better local search rankings, it is hard work. If you have satisfied customers who are delighted with your product/service offering, ask them to write a testimonial about your company. The more reviews you have from different geographical locations, the better the chances of your listings ranking well.

      Also, make sure your company details like address, phone # etc are consistent across all local search platforms (for example, Yellow Pages, White Pages, your prominent local directory etc). As long as these details are the same across multiple platforms, Google can verify the integrity of your data better and will make it trustworthy to be ranked.
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  • Profile picture of the author RedShifted
    Hey man,

    The most important thing you can get through your head here is consistency, and being patient up untill the 3rd month.

    Also, when you count reviews, don't just tally up your google places reviews, than your competitors google place reviews. Make sure you do a full review analysis on your competitors, which doesn't take a lot of time.

    For instance, take all the guys showing up in the 7 box, and actually type their business name + reviews, to get all the sites they have reviews on.

    Then tally them up.

    A lot of my competitors didn't have any reviews on their google places, but I'd find 15-20 combined on a few other sites. So I'd tell myself "I need at least 20 revews" before I start panicking about my rankings.

    I only built about 70 citations, which took no time at all. I got most of this outsourced on fiver. There is 1 guy on there who will do your first 48 citations and does an excellent job. He does 33 the first time around and 15 the second time. Then you can do a few more yourself.

    With that said, I still think that keyword rich reviews + website SEO will have the most significant effect.

    If you get enough reviews, you will begin to rank. And I've noticed listings seem to go through a newbie phase. This is my second listing that started ranking for less competitive keywords, I didn't really want to target, then around month 5-6 and started ranking for my money keywords.

    So for me personally, it was month 3 that I started getting traffic/calls, around month 6 that I started getting more calls of the type I actually want.
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