If someone is looking for companies in your area, they are much more likely to make use of the Internet than the Yellow Pages. When a potential customer uses Google to look for a specific kind of business in any one city it is very likely they finish up seeing a results page that contains Google Places listings. Google Places has many important benefits over organic looking results. These are some to consider for your business.
Organic looking results are listings that naturally show up in the results pages of the search engines. Most search site results page
have a mixture of paid and organic ads, and the organic ones are generally the most trustworthy by the public as these are results that’ve been gained over time and by the site owners optimizing their internet sites so that the content is related to the keywords being searched. Compare that to paid lists where the site owner can simply bid on any keywords that they like, and their website could, if they wish, have nothing at all to do with the searched keywords.
In October 2010, Google did something quite revolutionary. They mixed their organic ranking results with their existing Google Maps lists to attempt to help people attempting to find enterprises in a particular city really find those enterprises found their, instead of finding firms that are located tons of miles away, but have optimised their websites so that they can fight for that business.
When a search is carried out on Google, the organically listed websites yield an easy listing that has a short description and title. This is all that is seen until the links are clicked and the spectator is taken over to the particular business website. However , when you a Google Places listing is show these are more augmented and generally contain the basic info the searcher is attempting to find – a local phone number and an address. This essentially leads to more folk calling those companies than people who click through to the business ‘ website or the more detailed Google Places listing. What else could you ask for?
Other benefits of Google Places is that the exact listing permits the business to absolutely manage what is seen by the searcher. They can post online videos and photographs, they can give details of their opening hours, and most significantly, the listing can also show evaluations of past customers of the said company. Google Places gives your potential clients the chance to begin to know you and what you have got to offer in far less time than it would probably take to trawl thru your website. Google Places is actually the Yellow Pages of the 21st Century – only better. If you have not set up your own Google Places listing yet, then you need to do so before your competition race too far before you on this and you will be playing catch up. It is not enough simply to have a Google Places listing, you want to be sure it is showing up on the first page of the Google Search results, in the same way that organic ranking is only any use if you are showing up on page 1.
If you need help setting up your own Google Places listing and getting it highly ranked, you could do well to get the help of a Google Places expert or local SEO experts. The money spent might be a shrewd investment for your business.
Robert DiSalvo is the owner of BlowFish Marketing, a web development and search engine optimization company (Google Places Experts). BlowFish Marketing has earned a repuration as local search engine optimization experts, and have a developed a unique strategy that helps those businesses looking to attract more local business gain maximum visibility on the first page in the shortest possible time.
