HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR BUSINESS INFORMATION TO GOOGLE PLACES

By Blake Denman www.ricketyroo.com

Tuesday, February 12, 13

Step 1: Open your internet browser and go to http://local.google.com

Tuesday, February 12, 13

Step 2: Sign in to your gmail account by clicking on the Sign in button located in the upper right hand portion of the page.

Tuesday, February 12, 13

Step 3: After signing in, on the left hand side of the page in the left margin you will see a link that starts with “your business on Google Maps.” The word Put is in front of the link, go ahead and click on the link to be taken to the phone number lookup. Please note, in some instances you may have to sign back in to your Gmail account, after signing back in you will be automatically redirected to the phone number lookup.

Tuesday, February 12, 13

Step 4: Enter in your businesses phone number and click on the Find business information button. As you can see in this photo my company shows up, if you see your business information on this page click on the Edit button. If you do not see your business information click on the Add new listing button. If you enter in your phone number and get automatically taken to add your company information, that just means Google was unable to pull any company’s that have the same phone number as yours.

Tuesday, February 12, 13

Step 5a: Now it is time to copy and paste from your NAP document. -Company Organization: Enter in the legal name of your business. Adding a keyword to the business name was a tactic used by some in the past and in ended up getting listings banned. -Street Address: Enter in the street address of your business location. -City/Town: Enter in the city or town that your business is located in.-State: Pick the state that you are located in from the drop down menu.-Main phone: This field should already have your business phone number in it. If your business has a local phone number and a toll-free phone number, always default to the local phone number.-Email address: This is optional, but if you would like users to be able to get your company email address enter it in here. The email address will be displayed publicly.-Website: Enter in your company website starting with http://-Description: You have 200 characters to get your message across. You should have a short description in your NAP document, if not then write one out. Think of the description as a way to demonstrate how unique your company is versus just blurting out what you do and why you do it.-Category: Each one of your keywords is a category, you have a max of 5 you can use. You will need to find a category that Google provides that is similar to what you do. Adding in your keywords as categories is called adding custom categories. You can have 4 custom categories, and the other has to be one of Google’s categories.

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Step 5b: Service Areas and Location Settings. This part is extremely important, so make sure you do this accordingly to your business. If you are a storefront and all customers come to your location for your goods and services, simply leave the selection as it is and skip to step 5c. If you serve clients at their location, click on the Yes option and go to Step 5d.

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Step 5c: If you do not serve clients at your location then you need to check the box that says Do not show my business address on my Maps listing. This is important, if you do not check the box and Google deems that your listing should have checked the box then it will suspend your listing from showing on Google Maps. They have been more strict on enforcing that in the last couple of years. After checking or not checking the box, again depending on how your business runs, you have two options of how to display your service area. I prefer adding a list of areas served, city by city, or zip by zip. Add in city by city the areas that you service. When completed, move on to step 5d.

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Step 5d: -Hours of operation: It is best to add your hours of operation. Enter them in accordingly. Remember that this information should also be in your NAP document so you can easily reference it in the future if needed, though your hours of operation are your own.-Payment options: Check the payment options that you accept. Do not check payment options that you do not accept for the sake of just checking them.

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Step 5e: -Photos: Add up to 10 photos, start with your logo first. If you do not have any photos, that is ok. You can always come back and add more in the future.-Videos: Add up to 5 videos, if you have them. If you do not have videos, you can always add them in the future as well.-Additional Details: This is where you get to shine a little bit but also do a few industry tricks to help your ranking cause. In the first field enter in “Services.” In the second field type in the services (keywords) that your company provides. Don’t spam this section, simply add more relevant information that may help users make a decision in the future. If you give free estimates, add it. If your company has free parking, add it. The list goes on and on. When you are finished adding in additional details, click on the Submit button.

Tuesday, February 12, 13

Step 6: Now it’s time to verify that your business is legitimate. More often than not, you will see the screen above with the option to verify by postcard. If, by chance, you see the option to verify by phone call, then verify by phone call. If you have to verify by postcard, it usually takes less than 2-3 weeks as they suggest. My personal experience is that it takes roughly 10-13 days before the postcard arrives. Before you click on the Finish button to confirm the postcard to be sent, make sure the contact name for the postcard is correct. Change accordingly or leave it be if it is correct. Click on the Finish button.

Tuesday, February 12, 13

Postcards, as of early 2013, look like this: To verify the listing, simply follow the instructions inside of the postcard.

Tuesday, February 12, 13