Where: http://maps.google.com/
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.
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. But notice at the top, to the right of the SEARCH button, are a couple links. The middle link says “Find businesses.”
When you click that link, you have a new text field to type in the name or type of business you want to find. You might type in something like hair salon and click SEARCH. (Note: users can skip this step entirely by just typing in [hair salon fresno, ca] in their initial search.]
Now you begin to see advertising in the left column where the business listings are. In this example, there’s one ad at the top of the listings (see image) and a couple more at the bottom of the listings.
These 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’s Local Business Center. When you register your business, Google will send an activation code to your mailing address (snail mail). You have to return to the Business Center and provide that code before your listing will be accepted. Once you do this, Google says it’ll be up to six weeks before your listing is added. You can continue to use the Business Center to update your business information, add a new business, etc.
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.
C) Only after you’ve done A and B on this list are you able to create a Local Business Ad. This is essentially an enhanced version of your AdWords ad. As Google explains:
The ads display in two parts: a highlighted listing in the search results column and a map marker that expands to show additional business details when the user clicks on the ad title or the marker itself.
In other words, your AdWords ad gets some extra attention in both the left column (the search results) of Google Maps, and on the map itself. Use the link earlier in this paragraph to learn about Local Business Ads.
D) One other opportunity that may be coming in the future is a click-to-call advertising service. Google is currently testing this.
