Guide to Google Local Search
Where: http://maps.google.com/ and Google Places
What: Google’s local search service is Google Maps. Google briefly used the name “Google Local,” but opted instead to stick with the more popular and well-known Maps name. BUT … the business side of things is called Google Places.
How It Works: You’re probably plenty familiar with Google Maps. Type an address and see the map, or switch to a satellite photo, or even see a hybrid of the two. Here’s Fresno, CA, for example. All you have so far is a map, no business information.
At this point, the user can just type in “hair salons” and Google Maps will show a list of hair salons in Fresno. Or, more likely, the user would have began by typing in “hair salons fresno ca” or something similar.
Google shows a mix of paid ads and local business listings from Google Places. The ads come from Google AdWords, Google’s pay-per-click advertising platform, which allows businesses a way to target ads to specific geographic regions and geographic-based searches.
How to Market:
A) Make sure your business is listed correctly by using Google Places. Build out your listing with as much information and additional content as possible. Google seems to reward businesses that complete their profiles with photos, videos, and so forth.
B) Sign up for a Google AdWords account and create an ad campaign targeted specifically to your local area. This will allow your ad to appear only* when people in your geographic area are using Google; it won’t show up when someone across the country does a search for the keywords you’re bidding on.
* The geo-targeting is quite good, but not perfect.
Recent Comments