Advanced Optimisation for Google Local Business

By Geoff Jackson on 11 March 2010 @ 12:56 AM.

Tags: google places, glb, google local business, google local business center, google maps, google maps optimisation, google places optimisation, local business optimisation.

I'm going to talk through some of the best ways and proven methods to rank well on Google Local Business, if you have still yet to get your business listed on Google's Local Business Center then you may want to check out my step by step guide to 'submitting to and optimising for Google Local Business'.

So we are going to assume that you have your business listed on GLB already but you are appearing on page 74 for your target keyword; Well what use is that? Can you honestly think someone looking for a business in your niche is going to filter through 74 pages of businesses before deciding to phone one in the likelihood it may be yours? It's highly unlikely.

Whilst it's not necessary or possible to probably apply all of these optimisation techniques, I would encourage that you try and implement as many as possible... Just remember, as with any of Google's search results, they are based primarily on relevance and business listings are ranked on their relevance to the search terms entered, whether this be geographic distance (where indicated) or the closest match to your use of keywords in your listing.

Firstly, you must assure that you adhere to the quality guidelines set out by Google, failure to comply can see your listing(s) getting pulled from the system and you could even get banned from listing again. In short, these guidelines you should keep in mind are:-

• Ownership: Only business owners or authorised representatives may claim their business listings on Google Maps.
• Business name: Use your business name for the title of your listing exactly as it is without the addition of any other words. Your listing should also specify the exact and correct details for the address, phone number and website.
• Physical location: You should only list businesses where your business actually exists (or where you have employees operating from), PO Boxes do not count as a physical location, only create one listing for each location.
• URLAn acronym for 'uniform resource locator'.
  
  & Phone: Specify a direct phone number and website to your business and not anything that redirects elsewhere.

Onto the optimisation techniques...

1. Title: The title of your local business listing is one of the most important factors and if your business name doesn't contain your keywords or is descriptive of the industry you are in, then generally from past experience, you should be fine including a keyword in your title say for example "ColourNation London Hairdressers". Title spamming with keywords will almost certainly get you banned from GLB.
2. Description: Use the description of your business wisely, you only have 200 characters available so keep to short, descriptive sentences making use of your keywords where legibly possible. Put yourself in your customers position and ask what would stand out for them when browsing businesses in your niche.
3. Photos: Upload up to 10 photos, a good main listing photo would be a clear image of your business premises. If your premises is surrounded by greenery/trees, then try and take a photo on a nice summers day to capture with plenty of colour in the image, you want to try and make your business as appealing as possible. Try and make use of all of the image slots available, you could include photos of your office, staff, work that you have done or if you operate an ecommerce website, then use clear, quality imagery of your best selling products.
4. Videos: Google Local Business offer the option of including videos in your business listing, since Google bought YouTube, you can now include links to your YouTube videos and tag them with your target keywords which not only will improve your ranking on GLB, but also help visitors searching on your keywords come across you in the organic search results as Google, more often than not, will display video results on the first page.
5. Categories: The category fields are excellent way to make use of your keywords, you have to use a pre-set category as your main one so pick the closest match to your main keyword/industry but don't just leave it at that, use the other 4 category fields to include your other keywords and if you can't find a pre-set category, just create a custom one. Some examples could include: London Hair Salon, Manchester Carpentry, Newcastle Doctors Surgery... All likely search terms people would use for searching for local businesses.
6. Reviews: I would encourage you to seek as many customer reviews as you can, whilst ranking is not determined on soley just one factor, the number of reviews you have plays a huge part in your ranking and if you are in a competitive niche, then it is vitally important you look to gain as many reviews as possible as it will be hard to knock a competitor off the top spot with 350 reviews if you only have 5. Reviews are not just posted on Google Maps, the system pulls reviews from many other reputable review sites, especially local ones. I would recommend creating a business listing and completing your profile fully on as many other review sites as you can to increase the chances of more reviews being shown on your GLB listing. There are far too many third part review sites that Google Maps uses to list here but some of the most popular ones include:-
   • Qype.co.uk
   • Cosmotourist.com
   • Trivago.co.uk
   • Igougo.com
   • Booking.com
   • Tripadvisor.com
   • Tvtrip.com
   • Reviewcentre.com
   • Touch[local].com (replace [local] with your local area)
7. Coupons: Adding coupons to your GLB listing will influence your ranking, these will also help make you stand out from your competition if you are running any product/service offers for the business you receive via Google Maps.
8. Complete Your Listing: Make use of all fields that are available, the more information you are offering, the more questions you are answering for any potential customers.
9. Local Business Directories: Submit your business to as many local business directories as you can, GLB's ranking algorithm is all about local relevance, the more instances of your business name being connected to your keywords in your local area, the higher you will rank.
10. Upload any photos related to your business to Flickr and Geotag them, any photos geotagged to your location will appear on your business listing then.
11. Website Optimisation: Including your business name in all your title tags and necessary description tags and generally throughout your website where appropriate will influence your ranking on GLB.
12. Website Optimisation: Include your business name, address and phone number in your footer of your website, this way it will be on every page that gets indexed by Google and thus giving your GLB listing more weight as it is matching for relevance to your business listing.
13. Website Optimisation: Optimise your website for local keywords, if appropriate, include the name of your city/town in your website's content, title, description and header tags.
14. Onsite Keyword Optimisation: Research what phrases are ranking your business best for and optimise your website for those keywords.
15. Consistency Offsite: Whenever writing a description about your business on any third party website, always be sure to include your business name, business address and business phone number.

Not getting the ranking you want? Why not hire us for Google Local Business Optimisation

UPDATE

We have now wrote a more updated article on how to rank well on Google Places, please read our optimising for Google Places if you found this one helpful.

Update 03 November 2011

We have since published a more recent article on ranking/optimising on Google Places.