The Google Places Coupon Can Help You Score Points with the Google Places Local Business Directory

Truth be known, I don't think many consumers care much or even know about Google Places Coupons, but you can be sure that Google cares about them and will add to your "score" if you create a coupon for you Google Places directory listing.  Here's more on the subject in a short video.

The Google Places Description is a Critical Element in How to Set Up and Optimize Your Google Places Directory Listing

You may have heard of the elevator speech where you need to tell someone in 4 floors enough about your  mortgage broker business to get your listener to ask for your card.  The description space on the listing form for Google Places Directory is only 200 characters, counting spaces, or about 40 words.  You need to tell your whole story in a way that is captivating and yet includes keywords.

Here's a video with much more to say on the subject.

Google Places Directory - Ten Tips on How To Get Conversions from Google Places Business Listings

Getting your chiropractic office set up on Google Places is one thing.  Getting it on the outside MAP is the second thing.  But what if all that work doesn't cause the phone to ring.  No internet Marketing plan is worth anything if your resulting visibility does not result in conversions or actions taken.  What is a conversion?

A Google Places conversion is turning the impression into a visit, the visit into some kind of action, and the action into an order.  At any point along the way, the process can get hung up and the impression is wasted.  It is not unusual to see companies get 30 impressions per day with only 3 actions such as clicked a link to the website, blog, or other link offered, looked for directions, or checked out the coupon.   Google Places offers no method for finding out if someone calls your company on the phone.  Your staff should be asking every caller and visitor to the store how the person heard about you so that you can determine which advertising efforts are paying off.

What can you do to increase conversions:

1. Be on the outside MAP.  
2. Show up #1.  If this is obvious, sorry, but it needed to be on this list.
3. Have lots of reviews.  Consumers assume (probably correctly) that number of reviews correlates with quality of the business
4. Make sure you have a great first picture as it is the one that shows up as a thumbnail icon.
5. Fill out everything in the listing in great detail per the tutorials and posts in this blog.
6. Have plenty of action steps available.  Use links in the NewFlash section and the More Details.
7. Offer a great deal in the coupon and in the NewsFlash
8. Look over all the content and ask if this content would sell you on taking action.
9. Make sure you website, blog, facebook or any other resource the client clicks to is a selling machine.  Does it engage, persuade, close, and capture the client.
10. Watch your analytics and make changes based on results

Google Places Business Listings More Details Section - Load It Up!

Let's say you are a law firm using Google Places and you've filled out the rest of the form using all the ideas and suggestions in this blog or on the video series.  Now you are at the bottom of the page and you get lots of space to talk all about what you do.  You could put practice areas on the left and then list family law, criminal law, real estate law, and personal injury law on the right hand side. 

Or you could list family legal services on the left and divorce law, custody issues, spousal support, child support on the right.  You can also use this area to link your Facebook to Google Places or your Blog.  Just put in any URL you want to link.  You could also link an inside page from your website that was about a specific area of your business.  So using the law firm example again, you could put child support on the left and then put a link on the right that goes to the inside page of your website that talks about child support.   Here is a video that explains more detail.

Google Places Official Site Recommends Videos

Putting up a video is really easy.  Finally something that is uncomplicated.  But where or how do you get a video.  This video give you several options including hiring us to create a video for you.

But if you don't have a video, you might find some on the web that you can use.  If you are an Orthodontist setting up Google Places  looking for videos to put up, you could search YouTube for videos on Invisalign or braces or other manufacturers of aspects of your business. There is nothing wrong with listing these videos on your Google Places as long as they are not your competitors.

How to Put Pictures on Google Places Business Listings - Video Tutorial

The picture section of Google Places is extremely important.  Obviously, putting picture onto the places information section makes the whole presentation look much more exciting.  For a lawyer or doctor, a picture of the owner might be a good idea.  But for a jewelry store on Google Places, I would suggest a picture of a really nice ring.

The potential customer or client will learn a lot more about you from 10 pictures than from 10,000 words (or so the saying goes).  But the importance doesn't stop there.  Google counts those pictures towards your 100% status and thus it will effect your standing on the outside MAP.  If those two reasons weren't enough, your first picture becomes an thumbnail icon on your primary listing.  And if you have that picture, and it is emotionally appealing, you will undoubtedly increase the number of folks who click in to see the rest of your places site.  Here is a video with some more instructions.  You can also check out the pictures tutorial on the right side column of this blog.

Google Places Categories - Video Gives Clear Tutorial on How to Select Google Places Categories

Google Places has only one piece of advice for you on selecting a category.  The first one of the five allowed should be one of the options that Google Places offers in the pull down menu that appears when you put in a key word.  How do you decide which one to use?  What about the other four categories? These questions and more are answered in this video and in the Tutorial in the right hand column.  Some of the material is in both places.  A few things aren't. 

Google Places Directory: How To Claim Your Google Places Listing

Received an email from a visitor to the blog who astutely pointed out that I had never covered the beginning of the process.  Obviously, it is kind of hard to understand all the detailed inner workings of Google Places if you have not been able to find your business and claim it.

First, let's define CLAIM.  Almost all local search engines and directories (same thing to me.  I like to just call all of them LSE's), buy or otherwise acquire lists of businesses from various sources.  So when you try to find your listing for a Hair Salon or Barber Shop on YellowPages or Yahoo.local or here at Google Places, you might find that there is information about you appearing and you didn't do anything to cause that to happen.  When you find a listing of this type and you have not "signed up" with that LSE, then your listing is fair game.

By fair game, I mean that in many cases any member of the public can add to, subtract from, or change your listing.  This might be friend or foe.  You can well imagine the ways that your competitor or any other enemy might alter your listing for their benefit.  AND anyone can claim your listing.  They can say that they are the owner.  Now, each LSE has different ways to try and keep an interloper from claiming what is rightfully yours.  However, the best way to solve that is to claim it yourself.

There are two ways to do this.  Step one in the process is to look your business up on Google Maps.  Type in your business type and city (see first image below for Bakery Pomona) or business name and city (see second images below).  You will get a map most of the time.  If you see your name, click on more information if that is showing or reviews if not.  If you are not already listed, skip way down on this post to see what to do to create a new listing.

Google Places Analytics - Tips to Getting Maximum Benefit from Google Places

As a marketing consultant, one of the greatest challenges I face is working with my client to get tracking for any campaign.  Whether it is a newspaper ad, Craig's List, a local trade show, an ad in an industry publication, or the use of a promotional product, most owners and their employees have a hard time remembering to ask "How did you hear about us," whether on the phone, by email, or in person.

Without accurate tracking information there is little hope of getting enough real feedback to determine the success of any effort.  Sure, you can look at the quantity of contacts during the campaign, or the total sales around that time, but these are subject to other influences, and therefore not an accurate gauge.

Enter internet marketing.  One of the best aspects of online marketing is that many of the stats are automatically gathered by the advertiser or through attaching statistical tools to the back end of any online marketing ap.  So it is with Google Places.  And the huge results that can be seen in the analytic tool supplied by Google Places is one of the reasons I continue to point to this marketing product as the most important in the local internet marketing toolbox.


Here's the sad thing.  Most owners of small local businesses don't bother to check the analytics that are so easily accessible and free.  The wealth of information is huge, and can be used to impact future purchases, locations, phone practices, prices, couponing, event planning, and other online advertising approaches.

Google has now created a central location where you can access all of your Google products and tools.  Just type in Google.com/accounts  If you haven't signed in recently, you'll have to supply your id and password.  You will get something that looks like the above (although you likely don't have quite so many items on your page).

If you have claimed a Google Places business under this account, you should see Google Places as a link like the one in the first column on this page.  click that and you will go to this page.

Here is where you can start digging in to see who is looking for you, what they do when the find you, and what keywords they are finding you under, just to name a few. I will devote more time to this in a future post. For now - just go there and play around to see what is of interest to you.

Google Places Business Listing Tip - The Phone Number Question

Your name, address, and phone number need to be consistent throughout the web if you want Google Places to rank your business high on the outside MAP. We discussed how to choose the company name and address on tutorial videos 1 and 2. Now we go on to the issue of how to choose or determine the right phone number to use.