In Today's Issue
Search Engine Marketing
---> Google Places (Formerly Local Business Center)
High Rankings Happenings
---> Need Ongoing SEO Help?
---> May 14th SEO Class
---> Recession Buster SEO Website Review
Twitter Question of the Week
---> Local map listings in regular Google?
Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week
---> Coding from Scratch or a CMS?
Advisor Wrap-up
---> Just Letting You Know Introduction
Hey everyone!
I want to give a special shout-out to all the new subscribers who joined us after taking our online SEO course at Lynda.com. Welcome! I was going to say that I'll try to make this newsletter extra-special for you, but then I remembered that I do that for every newsletter anyway :)
With that out of the way, let's get straight to the good stuff! – Jill
Search Engine Marketing Issues
++Google Places (Formerly Local Business Center)++
In the early 1990s, when I was first online, very few businesses had a website. Gradually companies started coming online, but most of them were those that served a national or global market. While many local directories also came online, it was rare to see a strictly local company with a website. There were some exceptions, like those with professional practices such as dentists, doctors and lawyers. In fact, professional practice websites were some of my earliest SEO clients, although they weren't in my local area. But even in the mid-2000s, the typical hair salon, plumber or chiropractor were very rare to find online.
About 10 years ago I remember looking for a chiropractor in my area online and could only find one with a website, and it wasn't even one in my town. Much to my dismay, I ended up using the old-fashioned telephone book to make sure that I found all the nearby chiropractors.
Things are different today. While there are still a surprising number of small local businesses without websites, they are easily online thanks to Google's local search results. Did you know that, according to Google, one in every five searches is related to location in some way? It's no wonder that Google has put a lot of effort into enhancing their local search listings.
This week I learned through Search Engine Land that Google had changed this feature's name from Google Local Business Center to the simpler Google Places. In addition, they've added even more cool things you can do with your Google Page, once you've claimed your listing. For instance, if you're located in certain cities, you can purchase an enhanced listing, which they now call "tags," for $25 per month.
And if you operate a hotel, restaurant or local store, you can even apply to have Google photographers come and do a free photo shoot of the interior of your business!
 They've also added "QR code," which you can have printed on business cards or anywhere else. The code enables those with QR readers in their phones or other devices to go directly to your website.
More useful to the average business owner, however, is the new ability to post messages to your Place Page. This is great if you have an event coming up or just any special thing you want to tell people about. It can be up to 160 characters and it will show for 30 days unless you delete it sooner. You can post URLs that will become clickable links, but you can't use HTML code (I tried!). For our Place Page, I added the date to our upcoming SEO Class with a link to the class page. I think it's a nice touch.
If you claimed your company's local listing a long time ago and haven't checked it out in a while, you should definitely log on and revisit your page. And if you've never claimed your Place Page, there's no better time than the present!
Here's how to find your Place Page in Google: Head over to Google Maps and search for your company by name. When you find it, click the "more info" link. That should take you straight to your Place Page. If you haven't claimed your Place Page yet, click the link that says "Business Owner" and then click the "Edit my business information" button on the next page. Now you can fill in all the information on the form.
You might be concerned at this point that someone else could go in and change your information or edit it incorrectly…but don't worry. Once you've filled out the form, nothing will go live until you verify that you are the true owner of the Place Page. They do this by sending you a postcard via snail mail that has a verification code on it that you have to go back later to enter.
Be sure to do a thorough job filling out the description field for your website. This is where you want to add your main keyword phrases where they make sense to do so. Don't try to add keywords to your company name, however. The spammers and scammers have already killed that little trick and it will only get you in trouble with Google rather than helping.
You can and should add the maximum 5 categories to your listing because what you choose there can help your site show up when people are searching using similar words. Note that you don't have to stick with the categories Google recommends, but make up your own. I suggest doing some Google Maps searches using the types of phrases you'd want to show up for, and seeing what some of the sites that are currently showing up are doing.
I also highly recommend that you add photos and videos to your Place Page if you have them. Be sure that one of the pictures is your company logo! You can take a look at what we've done with our High Rankings Place Page if you'd like some ideas.
One place we're lacking at our site is reviews. We've been meaning to solicit some from clients, class attendees, forum users and newsletter subscribers, but haven't gotten around to it. Come to think of it, while I have your attention and while you're visiting our Place Page anyway, please feel free to write a review! Under "Photos & Video," you'll see a section for reviews and a link to write one of your own.
Even if your company is national in scope and doesn't do much local business, I strongly suggest claiming and enhancing your Google Place Page. These local listings are showing in more and varied ways in the Google search results, well beyond just Google Maps. I expect them to gain even more prominence, given all the effort Google has been putting into them lately.
Jill
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Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, a Boston SEO Consulting Agency.
Share your comments and thoughts here.
P.S. If you learned from this article, please feel free to forward your newsletter to a friend!
Twitter Question of the WeekThis week I asked my Twitter followers:
++Do you like it when local map listings show up in the regular Google results?++
WilliamLang: Y.E.S. Little to no downside.
davematson: If it is relevant, it's fine. Hate it when it shows map with results out of range.
leebrinckley: Haven't really thought about it...so I would say local map listings don't bother me.
netmeg: Would like ability to turn it off; just because I fill it out doesn't mean appropriate for all clients to have it display.
ann_donnelly: I can see where Google map listings in results could be helpful, if complete & accurate. In Ireland, often they aren't.
KatherineAndes: Does it matter if I like or not? Google doesn't care. Map listings are better than seeing yelp results when that's all that's on page.
Emma_Lee1: In the UK they're not accurate enough. Search for solicitors = claims management co results – not solicitors, not helpful.
domjbs: Often, yes. Taking off my local SEO hat, it's very useful from a user perspective in many verticals.
JTPotts: Yes - I basically only use map listings anyway.
marcusbowlerhat: Hmm, it seems a bit patchy. Search for Business type X in location Y works, whilst search for type A in location B does not.
marknunney: As a searcher – sometimes (when it helps); as an SEO – sometimes (when I get a 2nd listing there).
Jill: Yes, @marknunney has a good point. I feel differently about the Google Maps showing up in regular results depending on if I'm the searcher or the SEO. As an SEO, if your client's address isn't in the big city, their website can be overlooked because the local maps take up so much real estate in the search results. But on the other hand, I have often found those results helpful when doing searches, in general.
Want to participate in the Twitter Question of the Week?
Follow @jillwhalen on Twitter.
Advanced Forum Thread of the WeekForum member "Hic" asked the other High Rankings Forum members which they preferred for SEO, using a content management system (CMS) or coding the website by hand?
See what other forum members preferred here:
Coding from Scratch or a CMS?
Advisor Wrap-up
That's all for today!
I don't have any upcoming trips scheduled for a while, which is nice. It gives me a chance to keep up with work as well as perform those other pesky business chores that always seem to come up.
Oh, and I wanted to mention that if you've been thinking about taking one of our in-person SEO training classes, you should sign up for the May 14 class. The demand has decreased and we're getting very busy with client work, so it could be the last one we offer for quite some time.
And the other thing I wanted to let you know about was that we've put up all the free Lynda.com SEO videos in one place, in case you haven't see those yet. It's not the entire course, but it will give you some idea of whether you think you want to register to view all the videos.
Catch you in 2 weeks! – Jill
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