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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.

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Categories: SEO.
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