[TUTORIAL] Google Places Listings

MagicMike

Ok guys, I promised some ideas on how to get listed in the seven box and/or create your own one box... and here it is. While this will be long, it is in no way a complete course! I could add much more... but this will certainly get you listed. If you have questions, just let me know... not everything is always clear.

(I just noticed after writing up this below, that I started out using a remodeling contractor example, but then switched in the middle to plumbing example... buy you'll get the idea!!!)

1. Come up with 5 keywords for yourself. A main keyword and then 4 other supporting. Example:

Remodeling Contractor
Kitchen remodeling contractor
Basement finishing
etc.
etc.

2. Google Places allows for 10 photos to be uploaded. You want to upload all 10. Doesn't matter what the pics are of BUT they NEED to be saved on your computer as the same name as your keywords above! Two pics for each keyword. Example: you should have saved on your computer pictures named something like: remodeling-contractor AND remodeling-contractor-1. Those two would be for the first keyword. Then Kitchen-remodeling-contractor AND kitchen-remodeling-contractor-1... and so on for each keyword and pic.

3. Videos: There is a place for 5 videos. Use them all. Its not hard to create a short video. Try Movie Maker on your windows computer or FlixTime. They have a free account that you can use. All you do is use upload the pictures you saved and create a slideshow with some music. Save each movie individually as 1 of your 5 keywords. So, 1 movie, saved as 1 keyword. Each needs to be uploaded as its own keyword... hope that makes sense.

4. Upload your movies to youtube.com After you upload a movie you can edit the details of the movie in your youtube account. The title of the movie should be your keyword. The Tag of the movie should be the keyword. The description of the movie should be:

Keyword (title of movie)
http://www.yourwebsitedotcom

Company Name
Company Address, Company City & State & Zip Code, UNITED STATES
Company Phone Number

Thats it. Now, if you really want to do more with the videos, you can also submit to other video sites like veoh and dailymotion. You could also use TubeMogal as well to upload to a lot of sources, but those 3 should be plenty for now.

5. Create or update your existing listing...

Name: Joe's Plumbing | Boston, MA
(your name should be optimized for your city like above example)

Description: Joe's Plumbing has been serving the following cities for over 15 years: surrounding city, surrounding city, surrounding city, etc., etc, etc.

Category: Plumber
The next four categories you can select anything you want to... make sure you use the other four keywords for those categories.

Add your optimized Photos
Add your optimized Videos

6. Now you will come to: Additional Details...
This is tricky to explain here... but very important to do right.

There are 2 sets of boxes next to each other.
In the top box on the left you will put your main keyword with the word "website" after it... so it would read:

remodeling contractor webiste

Then in the box directly alongside of that you would put your website in there making sure you use: http. So it would be: http://www.yoursitedotcom.

The next box underneath your keyword you will put the words: Services Offered. Then across from it, you will put your first service offered... then on the box below the word "services offered" you will put another service, then across from that, another service, until all of your services are listed.

You must end on a right side box tho, so that you can create another "category" on the left side.

So now, on the next left side box, underneath all of your services offered, you will put: Cities Served Near Boston. Then on the box across from that you will put the first nearby city and you will continue on your list as you did with services.

7. Now you will click SUBMIT and you will pop in your phone number so googles automated system can call you and give you a code so that you can verify that it is really you!

ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Reviews are important. Start to ask your customers/former customers to go to your listing and give a good review.

Citations are EXTREMELY important. Citations mean that google will go out and try to find your business name and address on other websites to verify information and to see how "popular" you are. Thats why for the youtube videos we used your address in the description... we want them to be able to find that and link it up to your website and google places listing. The more "citations" you have, the more "trust rank" you build with google and the more likely they will be to list you quickly in the seven box.

Here are some places that you can list yourself. You might want to do some of these before you create or update your listing:

yellowbook.comsuperpages
yelp
merchantcircle
allpages
http://www.bridgat.com/index.php?pag...lan=SUB_SELLER
http://www.columbusohcityguide.com/advertise.php
http://www.manta.com/profile/my-comp...age-bar-header
http://www.celinea.com/cat-2995368-0.htm ; (add where it says "missing an entry?"
http://www.411.info/faq/ ; (you have to send them an email with business info... see faq)
http://www.rateitall.com/promote
http://www.insiderpages.com/support#q12 ; (FAQ #12)
http://www.localsearch.com/registration.aspx ; (try signing up here and see if you can list)
https://my.citysquares.com/search
http://www.lookupbook.com/directory/accounts/index.php
http://www.weddingbook.com/vendor-joinhttp://cdispatch.planetdiscover.com/sp?aff=1136&skin=100http://listings.yellowpages.com/Services/ServiceClaimSearch.aspx ; (free listing)

https://www.yellowbot.com/signin?yp_...%2Fnewbusiness
http://www.mojopages.com/biz/signup

After you create these "citations"... business listings, save the actual url that your listing is at and go to a free pinging service like pingler and "ping" the url so that google will find it quickly and they will be able to link it up to your google places listing once you submit it.

Also, you can use the coupon section as well. You can list 5 coupons... yes, name one coupon for each keyword!!!

This is by no means complete... but it is a pretty darn good start and should work for just about all of you right away.

Everything is optimized for keywords and cross-referenced in the right places and will match up with what google will find on the internet. Its all focused to work together...

We do this everyday of the week and get businesses listed in 10-20 keywords for Google Places usually within 1 hour to about 72 hours... so we know this process works, and it works everytime!!!!

Good luck... I'll try to make myself available for questions if you have any, as best I can.

Mike

ryanjm

Awesome, thanks a lot. Just updated all of my stuff.

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Rob Pankow

Very helpful and insightful. Way to bring new content to a topic that has been discussed around here for quite some time! Keep it comin

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y.painting

That's a nice tutorial. The only thing I would really advise against is keyword stuffing in the name of your business (ie including the name of the city, etc in your business name). This is explicitly against google's rules and can hurt you for two reasons:

1. Google itself will pick up the stuffing explicitly as such. (sometimes), but more importantly,
2. Your "new name" (ie the keyword stuffed name) is recognized by google as the actual name of your co. So, instead of "Joe's Plumbing", you are now known to google as "Joe's Plumbing | Boston, MA". Now, that wouldn't be a big issue if you actually went ahead and really did change your company name to that. But since you didn't, all other huge data providers that push data to google (and many other online directories) will still push your company data with your real name. Also, all places where citations were picked up will be picked up with the real name. Google puts huge emphasis on your company name, address, and telephone number matching up across as many 3rd party data providers and directories as possible. The more it matches, the better you'll rank. So, now google will have two sets of names for your business NAP (name, address, and phone) and such inconsistencies can and do hurt local rank!

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qualitygm

Great posting! Thank you. I got my Google listing 100% complete now.
Thanks again Mike.

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Val
Quality Granite & Marble Inc

ryanjm

I'm pretty sure this has helped me move up in the results for my area. Now I'm near the top in several search areas. Thanks again.

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happygreg

Thanks MagicMike,
When I get a little time, I am on that like white on rice!

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MagicPoolSvcs

Thanks Mike, very useful post.
How do you add a business to " Celina Business Pages " ?

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Paulie

Thanks Mike, I'll have to get on my marketing guy and tell him to get to work!

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Mike's Plumbing

Thanks for taking the time to do this Mike. It's people like yourself that make all the difference in a forum like this.

That's a big help to a knucklehead like me.

Mike

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MagicMike

Thanks Mike! I really appreciate that! I can't get here as much as I'd like to, but I do try to add to the value of the forum in my little world!!!

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MagicMike

LOL! I think I just put my foot in my mouth!!! That's funny!

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Ohmy

Nice, I followed your advice and now my local listing that was #2 is gone! Maybe it got tagged for KEyword stuffing.

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listedlocal

Good post. However, I would certainly not keyword stuff your business name. Simply just use your real business name.

Another thing. Citations are great, and this is primarily what google uses to rank these listings. However, the biggest mistake that I see most business owners make is that they do not list the information EXACTLY the same on their google places site and the listings that they submit to.

What I mean is, when you submit your business to any of these directories online you need to make sure that the information you put in is 100% the same as what you listed on your places listing or google will not give you credit. This means even down to the punctuation you use.

Also do not submit to these listings before you create your listing on google.

Ok, one more thing... Before you go ahead and create your listing, double check to make sure google has not created one for you already. Just go to google.com/maps and search "your business name" "your city" Example: Dave's plumbing, Akron OH.

If google has created a listing, you can claim it and edit by clicking "business owner?" in the upper right corner of the listing. This will give you a big head start in getting your business listed on the first page. Hope this helps!

y.painting

Right on, especially about the keyword stuffing. I've seen this tactic work for a while for some and then backfire in a major way. (But even if rank doesn't drop, you'll have trouble picking up citations when your business name is altered like that and we all know how important citations are to rank).

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Rob Pankow

seems to work well. thanks for the tips Been number 1 for the word home remodeling for quite some time, right above home depot. Number 4 for home contractor...but still always floating around 8 or 9 for bathroom remodeling and kitchen remodeling.

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dprimc

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dprimc

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festerized

Google should have sent u an e mail.
Check your regular e-mail account & your Gmail account

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dprimc

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