Get Your GOOGLE Place Page In Order

Have you claimed your GOOGLE Place Page yet?  Remember when I talked about GOOGLE Local becoming GOOGLE Places? In September I wrote about how GOOGLE Places was upgraded to a TWO-WAY STREET.  Webconsuls subscribes to a number of SEO/SMO on-line newsletters and also makes SMO and SEO News Feeds available for our site users. One of our favorite newsletters is Planet Ocean's Search Engine News and we read with interest their current article "Must Do List for November: Create, Claim, Improve Your Google Places Page."  Here is a bit of what they have to say:

"Google has rolled out Place Search which is a whole new way of displaying search results. This combines the natural and the local search algorithms and completely eliminates the traditional 7 pack and integrating it within the top 7 results. This is huge! The new algorithm relies heavily on Place Pages and it's clear that without a Place Page you may be left behind. Here's a location specific search that shows exactly what's changed:

"One thing to notice is that all the top results had very complete place pages that included pictures, reviews, links etc. As time goes by the consequences of the changes to local search will become clearer. The one thing we can tell you right now is you MUST have a complete Places Page for your business or you WILL be left behind in local search! Regardless how completed or not your Place Page is - make sure it is as complete as possible before December. This is the advice you pay us to hear...do yourself a favor and listen."

Ok, I am going to run through this information again.
 Follow these steps:

·         Go to  Google Places

·         Sign in with your business GMail address

·         On the new screen click on LIST YOUR BUSINESS

·         A new screen will appear and you will be asked to enter your non-toll-free phone number and then hit the button that says: Find Business Information

·         Your current business address will appear and you will click on EDIT to update your listing.

·         A new screen will appear where you will be allowed to give all of the pertinent information about your business.

·         At the end of this process, when you hit submit, GOOGLE is going to call you within seconds to give you and PIN number to activate your account.

·         It is very important that you be there to answer the non-toll-free number.  This is one of their ways of verification of business ownership.

You may be wondering why we just don’t take care of this for you.  We have found that this free Google service is better managed by the customer for a number of reasons. 

1. Google frowns upon 3^rd party management of these accounts, as we are not the business owner.
2. While we could go in and perhaps enter all of the information correctly, we are not sitting at your phone to take the call from Google and to try to coordinate that with you or your employee can be very difficult.
3. Now that Google Places allows the business owner to respond to REVIEWS (good and bad) you really need to manage and understand this tool.  We cannot respond for you.

Should you decide you need help with this, I would be happy to tutor you over the phone while you CLAIM YOUR PLACE and LIST YOUR BUSINESS.  Let me know if you have questions. 

Let's make it a goal: Get your GOOGLE Place Page in Order!

 Your Parking "PLACE" (Page) Awaits YOU!