Adding your business to Google Maps is a great idea and it’s FREE so why not take 20 minutes and get your business listed today.
- It tells Google that you exist
- You can come up for searches for your industry/business area when searches are performed in that area
- You can create an inbound link to your website
Google indicates that 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. By listing your business in Google Maps you are telling Google to display your business for searches relating to specific keywords in particular categories. When creating your listing be as specific as possible for the category/categories that relate to your business.
In order to list your business in Google Maps you must have a mailng address. PO boxes will not work. It is also important for you to create the listing on your own so that you can access the information and make changes as required when required.
When creating your listing on Google Maps make sure your listing exactly represents your business.
- make sure the business name matches exactly as it appears in the offline world.
- do not include “keywords” or taglines in your business name
- do not include phone or urls in the business name field
- do not try to “SEO” optimise your listing with extraneous or superfalous keywords in the business name field.
- be selective when choosing the categories for your business.
- be succinct in the description of your business – do not include html in your description (you’ll get an opportunity to put the website in the website field)
In order to establish a Google Map listing you will need to establish a google account. This is important for Webmaster Tools, Analytics, AdSense and AdWords anyway so if you haven’t already, take a moment to establish an account.
To create your business listing go here: www.google.com/local/add/