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UPDATE: As of April 2010, Google Local Business Center has been renamed Google Places.

Doing a search for a product or service on Google usually yields a number of local business results, displaying their locations on Google Maps. Google enables businesses to submit their own business listings (or to take control of your existing listing) via Google Places.

Signing up and claiming a listing is easy! Open up the listing on your browser and click “edit.” There are a couple of options, including one for claiming your business. Whichever one you choose, you’ll still have to be verified. When you submit your information, you can opt to have a verification call, receive an SMS or even do it via snail mail. You’ll be given a pin number, which you can use to claim your listing.

So now you’re in charge of your own business listing – now what?

You’ll have access to the Google Places Dashboard, which lets you add or change information on your business’s listing page. After making sure your details are correct (including your map location) you should add relevant picture.

Find a photo of your storefront or maybe your logo. Use a photo that best represents your company (within Google’s guidelines, of course). You’ll be able to add up to 10 photos in total – show off your best products, some of your employees or even one of yourself.

There’s also a bunch of information you should add or update – your category (to make it easier to search for your business), your website, your hours of operation and payment methods, as well as other pertinent details (parking, for example) will help your customers when deciding to visit you.

Be sure to provide a keyword rich description of your company and take advantage of the opportunity to add relevant videos – e.g., a tour of your company, interviews with your clients, educational videos, etc.

Aside from being able to update and edit your company details, there are a couple of tools bundled in with Google Local Business Center. One of the more useful ones is the Local Business Center dashboard which will help you to learn about the traffic that your listing gets – similar to using Google Analytics for websites. You’ll be able to find out what keywords are driving traffic to your listing – and help you make adjustments.

You can create marketing campaigns and promotions to suit your audience and potential clients. You don’t even have to go offline – why not create coupons right there on Google Places?

The Google Places was designed with small and medium-sized business owners in mind. It lets you create a customized directory listing to help your customers find you, whatever they may be looking for. There are many ways to make this work to your advantage – why not give us a call and we’ll help you optimize your listing today!

Tags: google local business center, Online Marketing Strategy, Self Promotion

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Accessibility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.