How To Register With Google Local Business Center
Optimizing for Google Local is still one of the most underutilized and cheapest forms of online marketing. There are thousands of local businesses in every town and the competition for local search is underway. It is becoming increasingly critical that you are ranking for your local keywords as competition gets tougher by the day. The good news is that it is super simple to optimize for local search and now Google, realizing this, has put out this video:
These are the basic steps:
- 1. Go to Google Maps
2. Click “put you business on Google Maps”
3. Sign in or Create an Account
4. Click “Add New Business”
5. Enter your business information
6. Click “Next”
7. If it shows your business is already on there, click “claim listing”
8. If it’s not there, click “add listing”
9. Then you can enter additional details such as business category, opening hours, photos, payment options, etc.
10. Click submit
11. At this point, you will need to verify you business by phone or postcard. After you are verified, your info will appear on Google Maps.
12. Later on, you can go back to Local Business Center to edit your information, see how many people went to your listing, or create coupons.
That’s about all there is to it. There is not a whole lot of work for what could potentially be a whole lot of exposure and added convenience for customers looking for what you offer. You should probably take a few minutes and do this. I have seen merchants make HUGE gains in sales just from a better optimized local listing!
I visit your website frequently and its very good , please keep it up , 10/10 marks…
Question from a newbie
If my local business address is (my home) in Winchester CA – how can I create a listing that will show up in San Diego or LA?
Do I need a landing page for each city?
Can I use a UPS store or Postal Annex?
Any help appreciated.
Joe Kindred
Hi Joe,
Yes you will need a landing page for each location with all of the pertinent info like address, phone, etc. Here’s a tip for that. Add as much local info as you can to these pages. If you sell BBQ’s link to some local meat markets. Provide useful resources on these pages and they will go a long way. Of course make sure that they are well optimized too. Pointing some links to these pages would also be good.
You can use UPS/PO boxes but don’t overdo it. Google will catch you and ban you. If you have 2-3 that should be fine. But you will also need local phone numbers to match. Phone numbers are being used as a large trust factor since they change far less often than addresses do these days. So get numbers and keep them!
Submit your new pages, and addresses, to Google local business center and be sure to use the exact URL of your internal location page for each location.
Hope that helps.