Local search is poised for a huge increase in revenues, services such as Google Maps, Yahoo maps, Bing maps have suddenly seen a high volume of traffic due to the growth of smart phones like Apple iPhones, BlackBerry and Android.
A user with a smart phone has different usage patterns to search the web, they may not go to Google.com to search for a nearby restaurant but may use Google maps, most of the smart phone’s today have built-in GPS feature that works very well to show the users search location via Google maps.
If you are hungry and want to eat a pizza in Toronto, Canada all you need to do is type “Pizza” into Google Maps, which automatically shows you the nearest pizza restaurants or show you all Pizza restaurants located in a particular area in Toronto. You don’t need to know the address or any other details of the restaurant, the search shows up on the bases of the location – a very powerful feature.
1 ) Go to Google Maps and type in your business (ie. Pizza Toronto ), check the listings featured on Google Maps. If you already have your listing on Google Maps, then click on the more info link to check the details about the listing. It will take you to a page in Google’s Local Center about your business.
2 ) Google is looking for owners of these pages so that the listing and other particulars about your business are accurate.
3 ) You need to click on business owner link and login with your Gmail account to claim the page, once you have claimed your page, you can add / edit the details on the page (ie. address, phone number, email ids, photos, upload video and more ). Click on submit once you have validated the information.
4 ) If you don’t find your listing then go to Google Local and click the link on the left hand side that says ‘Put your business on Google Maps’, enter the necessary information about your business in terms of appropriate tags, (ie. Pizza Toronto, Pizza Restaurant Toronto ) the search tags are what prospective customers would look when searching for information about your product or service. Fill in the appropriate business details (ie. address, email, phone number etc. ) and click submit
5 ) Once you click on submit, Google will want to validate that you are the actual owner of the listing. They will send you the PIN code activation details to the address in the listing. Once you get the PIN code, follow the instructions to claim your listing. You can either do this via postcard or telephone.
6 ) Once you have claimed your listing you can update or edit your listing on Google Maps as often as you want. You may also want to check back on Google (local search) for your listing based on the tags that you selected. You results should show up in a few hours. If you have any other business you can use the same process to verify and claim additional listings.
A well optimized website may take anywhere between 6 – 8 months to get featured on Google, by using the above steps your business or service can get featured very quickly under local searches on Google maps. Google maps is going to be a big revenue generator for Google in the coming years. You may just have to pay a premium to be listed on Google maps in a few years.
Do you have a local business ? Have you listed yourself on Google maps ?
27 comments
Many “SEO” companies out there are charging their clients $100 per month to get their business on the first page of Google when in reality, all they’re doing is submitting their business address into Google Local search.
I know this because I used to work for a firm that did this exactly this, I quit because they were just scamming people. Great post ZK.
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Local Search is big business for SEO firms , a lot of them have started using blackhat SEO tricks to get listed.
I’ve seen wikipedia searches for services that rank high on Google maps ( completely irrelevant with what the user is looking for ) …Google is soon going to change the algo for local search if this continues…for now make hay while the sun shines 🙂
Yup. The place I quit from actually received a cease and desist letter from Google.
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Google still not showing such kind of search in Pakistan’s local search engine
I have used Google maps for search before, but not very often. If I had an iphone and was currently out looking for something maybe, but I rarely find myself doing searches for local businesses.
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Excellent tutorial ZK, since I am new to promoting via Google maps.
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This is definitely a must for Google Maps.
This really a great tips and amazing knowledge to promote our web business on google maps. I really need this type of knowledge.
Googlemap is no doubt a boon to the local business owner as they can list in it
and boost their sales. Now a days people are searching most thing on internet if they can find the location as well then it serve great to them
I have to say that it is a good way to promote the product or services into maps…but the main question is that when there are more than 10 pizza providers in same location then how can people know that which one is better.
This will definitely become paid for in future, most propably along the lines of adwords with bidding on keywords, so expect some niches to be heavily contested and very expensive as a result.
This is been a great tutorial for me to get the best tips for promoting business on google maps as its not an easy task and is a vast thing to have your listing on google maps.
Great summary on how to claim the listing… do you have a post in the works that discusses how to improve the local listing rankings?
Google Local / Google map is big business, I remember Google having some issue with locksmiths and other people who where taking advantage of the system.
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Yes, you are right ..Google was showing results where by searches for location based services for locksmiths and plumbers were featured on Google maps but their links pointed to their Wikipedia page instead of the location of the business on the Google maps system…this could also have been due to methods adopted by SEO firms
haven’t tried google maps yet 😀
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Hit the nail on the head ZK. The value of the google map is that it come above the first scroll in Google. We had accidentally listed on Google Map 3 months back and suddenly we found that there are a lot of calls in the afternoon. The reason was that Google switched on the maps in the afternoon and we were the first link for a high volume keyword. Hope the maps will be more useful as they will integrate it more with other Google services
That’s awesome…thanks for the testimonial 🙂 ..do you still rank high on Google maps ?
Yes we rank good enough but may bot help now as more people will do the same after reading your posts :D.
Google Maps for Local Searches can really add a lot of Phone Calls for your business. I was talking with an American friend and he told me SEO is B*SHT.
All he did was make a Google Map for his Business, ask for reviews and Five Stars, and he gets 100-200 phone calls a day….
That’s interesting…. But I don’t think SEO is B*SHT…. ^_^
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Local search may have been great a few months ago, but the competition is getting fiercer. Especially now with Google reducing the the number of businesses showing up from 10 to 6! I was helping a local physician set up on local search when I discovered the age of sign up also counts. There were quite a few physicians in the local search with no websites just linkbacks from some physician grading sites getting listed higher than physicians with an equivalent number of backlinks from similar sites. So with everything being equal what is driving some of these free listings with no websites to be included in the 6 and not the others. ( remember none of them have a website)?
Thanks for sharing this valuable insight on Google Maps..It seems Google has a lot of work to do here…
Google map is really good feature for small business owner.
We’ve been used to google adwords for selling our businesses. nice article, Google maps is a great tool for targeted areas in your country.
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I haven’t try google maps yet but this seems to be useful. Great post.
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Google map is very helpful for finding local business!
Very good and helpful information.
I agree ZK, adding your business on Google Maps can give you a lot of traffic. I also suggest to my friends the adding of reviews/content to the Business so it will rank higher than others.
Agreed ZK, Google maps optimization helps a lot and do get some business queries through it.
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