Google Places allows your business to rank for keywords in Google, which is not possible otherwise. Because of this, businesses should leverage the local listings to increase local traffic. Make sure you include the town, city, and country in your Google Places listing. You can also have multiple listings in the same listing by ticking the “other” box. It is suggested that you have your keyword in your business name and your phone number, which saves having to write down the phone number. Also, in the “other” box write down other services your business offers, its address, and description. You can write these down by checking the box “other”.
With organic listings, your business receives high rankings on Google, which is similar to AdWords. The main difference is that it is free. Google searches the web for businesses in your area, which have high quality, relevant content. Google also looks at the links the content has received, and in turn gives a rank. Organic listings give a higher rank than paid listings.
Paid listings with more links and authority comes for which costs money. Paid Listings are the most widely used in digital marketing today, where as Organic Listings do not cost money and you can use as many times as you need. A paid listing can be as simple as putting your phone number in your listing. However, there are also paid listings with more features like having your business website and links on directories. The most famous example of such was Google Places and Bing Ads. Bing was the first of the three major search engines to launch such. It is because of this that it is used as a standard. However, there are other sites like Yelp and City Search where you can have your listing.
Your listings do give some information about your business and it can be accessed by clicking on the radio buttons. The radio buttons have descriptions and an option to “show the phone number”. The radio buttons are as follows:
> Business Description
You can add more keywords, but keep in mind that Google does not give any keyword importance. You can think of your business using certain keywords, but Google should not be the determining factor of ranking. For example, the name of your company can be “Steve Doerne Dentistry”. You can choose the variations of the word “Steve” (Steve-do, Steve-dogen, etc.). “Steve Doerne Dentistry” is obviously a more focused keyword than “Steve-dentistry”. However, even a niche keyword like “Steve-dentistry” will probably rank higher than “Steve-doe. You can find your keywords using Google’s keyword tool (Google Tool Engine).
> Website Archive Links
This is an important way for Google to check the validity of your business website. Links from other websites to yours can be checked, and also check who is linking to you and when.
You can add a phone number link to your site so that Google knows how many people are visiting your site via a phone. This is useful for local search marketing because a potential customer can see how many people are visiting your site via a particular mobile phone (Samsung Galaxy, Apple iPhone, Blackberry, etc.).
> Link to a “submission platform”
You can link to a portal platform such as Linked In, Linked Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Google Places, etc. These submission platforms make it easy for potential customers to find your business. They also check the validity of your website. You can get a list of popular submission platforms by contacting the platform provider.
> Update your website regularly
Update your website frequently, because Google keeps checking the validity of your website, and sometimes it needs to be refreshed. For example, if you have recently updated your website with new products and services, you might not show up immediately after Google’s refresh. You should try to update your website on a monthly basis.
> Get back links from authority sites
You can get back links by subscribing to RSS feeds and submitting your website URL to directories. You should try to get links from authority sites. The more back links you have from authority sites, the more authority it creates in your website. A back link from an authority site is considered a vote for your website.
> Make sure your Website is easy to understand
You should make sure your website is easy to understand. The website should also be useful to potential customers. The more utility your website has, the more utility it provides to a potential customer. A website with no importance to a potential customer is useless.
To boost a website’s rankings you should also pay attention to the following factors:
> Look for keywords search engine loves
Look for keywords search engine loves and search terms for which search engine gives a priority to pages. You can save money by looking for these keywords and search terms. The more the search term popularity, the lesser the website must work to obtain a high ranking. You can take help of software that can help you to identify the keywords and search terms.
