If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Choose All The Right Categories

You can easily improve your rankings in Google Maps for relevant searches by making sure your business is listed in all the right categories.

In your Local Business Listing, you may specify up to 5 categories where you would like your business placed. First, choose a main classification and then a
sub classification. The main classifications are in the left box, below, and the sub classifications of Travel are in the box on the right.

Try to use all 5 categories, if you can. You may need to browse through all of the options before deciding on the best 5 places to appear. You choices may be all in one category or you might want to appear in several different ones. For example, a restaurant might choose: Restaurant-Sports Bar, Restaurant-Take Out, Entertainment-Karaoke, Restaurants-Caterers and Services-Event Planning. Or they might choose 5 subcategories within Restaurants, such as All You Can Eat, Buffets, Chinese, Thai and Korean.

Chances are , the original categories Google Maps places you in came from the placement of your business listing in the yellow pages. However, there is no strict cross-over. The yellow pages use Garbage for all things related to garbage, waste, trash and refuse. In Google Local Business Listings, the category you may choose is Services-Trash and Waste Removal and, when I search for trash, garbage or waste and my zip code, Google Maps returns the categories to the right. So , it’s pretty hard to tell what’s really what.

The good news is that categories are only one part of the algorithm for Google Maps. Therefore, if you optimize your web pages properly for the keyword terms that are relevant to your business, you have a good chance of appearing in more than the 5 categories you choose.

The Internet Yellow Pages Taxonomy

IYPs stands for Internet Yellow Pages. They are also referred to as OYPs or Online Yellow Pages. To me the most frustrating thing about trying to use them is their taxonomy or classification system, which places businesses into established categories.

While this imposes order onto what could be a chaotic system, the classifications in the phone book are very rigid and do not necessarily reflect the ways that most people search for you.

My favorite example is with medical practices. Most of us will naturally search for doctor and not for physician, and, if we know what kind of doctor we want, we will immediately search for that specifically. But what happens when you look in the Superpages for foot doctor? I see:

The IYPs obviously want to use the terms physician and surgeon instead of doctor, even though doctor is the term most people would use. If I don’t want to have surgery, have no idea what podiatry is and the big bump on my toe has nothing to do with sports, none of these will look like good choices for me. I think I’ll go search the web, instead.

And what if I have bad headaches and I don’t even know what kind of doctor go to, so I search for headache doctor.

These results aren’t very helpful to me, especially since I have a headache and am not reasoning well.  So, I try doctor for headache and the results are even less useful, as I am given the Aspen Center for Women’s Health and Aspen Center for Cosmetic Surgery. Whaaaaat? I’ll guess I’ll go see if Google Maps can help me out.

Make Your Website Speak For You 

As we talked about in part 2 of this series, Google’s trust in the information they have about your business can effect your rankings in Google Maps. Part of this trust comes from the information they gather about you enterprise when they crawl your website.

Your site should tell the Search Engines very clearly who you are, where you are and what you do. This, of course, is also very useful for your human visitors who are the customers you are trying to attract to your brick and mortar business.

Make certain the name of your business, it’s physical address (including the zip code) and a tagline that concisely explains what you offer appear in text form on your home page and on all other important pages.

Above, you can see that this web site clearly tells humans and robots that it is a Birmingham, Alabama Hotel. Then, in the footer of all their pages, they give their street address and phone number, with area code, which is another clue to give the Search Engines about where you are.

Most of the people who’ve been keeping their Google Local Business listing up to date know that they can upload photos onto their Google Maps pages. If you’re not one of them, it’s time to get on board!

Depending upon the kind of business you have, this can be immensely important. For example, here’s a realtor who rents condos in Wildwood NJ and has 10 pictures on his Photos & Videos page on Google Maps. His main competitor has not uploaded any photos. Which listing do you think appeals more to people searching for a place to rent for their summer beach vacation?

Now, it is also possible to upload videos to your Google Maps listing. If you already have some videos, it won’t take long to get them onto your listing and it’s well worth the time investment. If you don’t have any videos, this is a marketing tactic you need to think seriously about getting into.

Standardize and Build Trust

Another huge factor for ranking well in Google Maps is the Search Engine’s trust in the information they have about you. One measure of trust is if the information they see about your business across the web is standardized.

Standardize Your Business Name

Have you used different names for your business on different websites? If the Superpages list you as Denver Widgets LLC, the Chamber of Commerce has you as The Denver Widget Company and your website says Best Widgets in Denver, how can Google tell if you are one business or three? They will look at clues and often do make the connection. However, it’s much better if you make the connection for them and not leave that to chance.

Standardize Your Business Address

If, when Google crawls the web, they see several different addresses for your business in different places, they get confused about where you really are. Did you move? Are you in the town where you’re PO Box is or somewhere else? Have you used your home address in some places and your office address in others? Again, Google can solve some mysteries, but it may still cause you problems.

How to Standardize the Information About Your Business

As explained in part 1 of this series, you should claim and verify your listing in Google’s Local Business Center. If there are multiple listings in Google Maps for your business, suspend the additional listings. Mike Blumenthal tells you how to do that on his Local Search Blog.

Check your listing in the online version of your local phone book. If this isn’t the information that you want people - and the Search Engines - to see on the web, then change it. Most Internet Yellow Pages make this fairly simple to do.

Go to the websites of the two big aggregators that feed Google Maps and make the information they have about your business uniform. These companies, who compile and distribute information about people and businesses, are the sources that other companies use for data. While it can take several weeks to several months, the updates you make in these places will propagate to the many, many other websites across the web who rely on them for data, including Google Maps.

See where business data comes from for each of the Search Engines withBruce Clay’s Search Engine Relationship Chart - Local Edition.

Here’s where to go to add or update your listings:

Info USA It’s difficult to find out what information they already have about you, so it’s best to fill out the form on this page with what you want them to know.

Geosign makes it impossible to figure out how to update your business info on their website. so email them at info@geosign.com .

Blizzard Internet Marketing has released a new white paper by SEO’s Carrie Hill and Mary Bowling. The free internet marketing mini-manual is entitled SEO for WordPress Blogs and is available for download on our website.

If you are a regular reader of our newsletter, you already know we are huge fans of the WordPress blogging platform. It’s easy to learn and use and offers a multitude of Search Engine Optimization benefits.

The 14 page, illustrated marketing white paper covers the following topics:

• Why a WordPress Blog?
• Setting Up WordPress for SEO Success
• Start Blogging
• Promote your Blog
• WordPress SEO Plug-Ins

Blogging is here to stay and WordPress is the way to do it. In the world of internet marketing, if you’re not blogging, you’re apt to be left behind. And if you are blogging, make certain you’re taking advantage of all the SEO benefits it can give you.

Get started today by downloading SEO for WordPress Blogs by Mary Bowling and Carrie Hill.

UPDATE

Here are some great suggestions from our readers for more WordPress Tips and Tricks. Thanks everyone for your suggestions and support!

(more…)

Get Listed! 

For many businesses, ranking well in Google Maps (Local) is even more critical than achieving a good ranking in the Universal results. However, Maps has it’s own algorithm (as do Yahoo Local and Live Local) and, of course, Google is not sharing the details with us.

While there are no magic bullets, there are a few simple things you can do to help yourself rank better in Google Maps. The first and most important of these is to claim, verify and update your listing(s) there. A listing that has been verified by the business owner gives Google Maps a very high level of trust in the information that they have about you, which, in turn, helps you to rank better in their algorithm.

First, go to the Google Local Business Center. If you don’t already have one, you’ll need to create a Google account. If you have one, you can sign into it and begin creating or editing your listing. You’ll be given step by step instructions, as you move from screen to screen through the process.

Add as much information as is practical. Don’t skimp on the photos or the details about your products and services. This is exactly the kind of information searchers want to see about your business. It helps them to narrow down their choices and pick the enterprise they think will best satisfy their needs. Be sure to verify your location on the map and, if necessary, correct it.

Once you’re satisfied that you have included all the pertinent information Maps will accept, you’ll need to convince Google that you are authorized to provide this information on behalf of the business. While you can do this by either snail mail or phone, there’s no question that you should do via the telephone for speed and ease. This process is somewhat cumbersome, but a necessity, since without it, anyone could modify your business info.

Google states that it can take 4-6 weeks for your changes to appear in Google Maps, but usually happens more quickly. Check your listing periodically and update it as needed to keep your prices, services and product lines fresh.