Claim your Google Place!

The recent changes by Google to the way that local search results are being displayed has placed even more focus on the importance of the Google Places listings and, in particular, what local businesses need to do in order to increase their presence. If your business doesn’t yet appear within the Google Places results, or you need to claim and optimise your listing, then it’s time to act now!

Google has been developing their local business listings over the past few years, providing searchers with a directory of relevant businesses in a local area. Initially the business listings are taken from Yellow Pages and therefore the information is dependent on what Yellow Pages holds (which can also sometimes be significantly out of date!). However, Google gives business owners to opportunity to ‘claim’ their listing and then to add additional content to help improve ranking visibility and to provide more information for users.

The best way to check how your business is being listed is to search for your business name and location on Google Maps. If you have some type of listing then your business should appear in the results to the left of the map. If not, it may mean that your business listing is not even on Yellow Pages or Google, or that the information is inaccurate or out of date.

If your business is listed, click on the ‘more info’ link to see the details being shown for the location, and then select the ‘Business owner?’ link to the top right of the listing. You need to sign-in or set-up a new Google account to access this, but once done, you can edit the information or add any new content. Before any of this information is then accepted by Google, you need to verify your listing via a mailing to your stated business address, or sometimes via an automated phone message – both of which will provide a verification code for you to input against your listing to prove that you are the rightful owner.

If your listing doesn’t appear at all, then you can still set up the new details on Google Places, once you’ve logged into your Google account. Again, you will need to verify the details and, as a new listing, you will only be able to do this via a mailing to your business address. However, once done, your listing will be accessible from your Google account and you can add or update information as necessary in the future.

This is the essential first step to optimising your Google Places listing and one that should be done sooner rather than later. Next month we’ll talk about the best ways to manage and optimise your listing, to help your local search visibility and to see how users are viewing your business details. However, if you’d like more information about this before next month, or if you need help finding our claiming your Google Places listing, please contact us now.

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