Google Places are a series of web pages (or business listings) that Google has gone ahead and created for virtually every place that you can think of (in the entire WORLD!) There are Google Place Pages for EVERYTHING including individual business, points of interest, public stations, landmarks, towns, cities, and so on. The purpose of Google Places (GP) is to organize all of the world’s information for these places, within the GP listing. Obviously this information would include location, phone number, website, address, citation listings, and reviews.
So what does Google Places have to do with YOUR business?
Great question! … The short answer is, Google Places is a great way for your potential customers to FIND you, and more specifically, find out about you. You see, these Places listings have already been created by Google, they are already indexed in the Google Search Index, and Google LOVES to include these Places listings prominently in the search results pages.
Haven’t seen a Google Places listing before? Here’s what the listings look like within a search results page:
Or a more substantial listing looks something like this:
As you will notice the usual appearance of the GP listings is a series of seven listings. This is commonly known as the “7 Pack” or “Google 7 Box”, or even the “7 Block”. These are interchangeable terms and mean the same thing, which is the seven Places listings (A-G) for that particular search page. In the examples above the search term was for “Perth plumbers”.
Obviously the ideal position for your business to appear in, is the 7-Pack on the first page of the search results. For a local business the advantages of appearing here are immeasurable. It means your Places listing will appear prominently increasing the chance of being visited, and people searching for local products and services find the Places pages more relevant to their search.
Google created Google Places to make local search results more relevant to local searchers. Which means that a well optimized GP Page can outperform (in the search results) a website that has been around for years. The implications of this are HUGE for local businesses…
So how do you get a Google Places Page?
More than likely you already have one… Google has been very thorough when it comes to their (your) Places Pages! To be able to edit your Places page, add to it, optimize it, and generally make it more accurate, more appealing, and more likely to appear on the coveted first page, you will firstly need to claim it…
However, simply claiming it won’t give you an advantage over your competitors on page one. You see, they are appearing on page one because most likely they have already claimed their Places page and they have already had some level of optimization done to it.
And here’s my cue! My job is to help local businesses claim their Places Page, and then to set about optimizing it (in dazzling fashion :-)) using a variety of tactics, citation listings, reviews, images, and videos (which I can provide), thus giving your Places listing the very best chance of appearing on page one (remembering that page one is the holy grail of Search Engine Marketing).
Google Places should be considered one of the cornerstones of internet marketing for local business… Don’t take it lightly, it’s importance should NOT be underestimated!
