Target Local Customers For Your Business With Google

Everyone knows Google is one of the most popular Search Engines used today, in fact, it’s the largest in the UK with a market share of over 75%.

Most people also associate Google with large national searches, great for when you want to find niche suppliers somewhere in the UK, or you want to compare prices from a few stores to make sure you’re getting the best deal available.

But did you know that over the past few years Google has done more and more to help you find local companies that can offer the products and services you’re looking for.

Google recognised some time ago that if a searcher typed a search term i.e. what they were interested in finding and a town, for example, if I want to find a solicitors in Doncaster I would type in something like ‘solicitors doncaster’ it was because they wanted to find a local firm of solicitors – fairly obvious I suppose.

But what used to happen is that even though the searcher included the town name in the search query, they’d be greeted with a Google top ten that consisted mainly of the large national companies, not ideal when they wanted a local solicitor to start with!

So a few years ago Google introduced something called Google Maps so you could see where companies where based, which turned into Google Local Business Centre which in turn was morphed into Google Places which we have today.

The point of Google Places is to provide relevant supplier details to users regardless of what that searcher is looking for whether this is a restaurant, fancy dress hire, plumber, tiler etc etc, and the best bit? You can optimise it, put in all the relevant information you want people to know about your business, upload images and videos (which might be good if you want to show people examples of your work) show customer reviews which all leads to providing a richly detailed overview of your business which should lead to searchers either clicking through to your website or picking up the phone to talk to you. Which at the end of the day is why you have a website in the first place!

Oh, and having a Google Places listing is free, although you might need some help with initial configuration and optimising it and your website on an ongoing basis.

So, do your business a favour and review your listing, you can appear in a map like the one shown above purely because Google has found you in a business directory not because you’ve done anything proactive to appear in the map.

If this is the case, it’s important that you claim your listing (which you can do by clicking the link that says ‘business owner?’), this is important because it allows you fully optimise your listing and also it stops other people claiming it!!

So, if you want to appear to local searchers for your products and services make sure you claim and optimise your Google Places listing.

At www.needmoreclicks.com we can help you make the most of this and get more from your Google Places listing.

Andy Roberts
Managing Director

www.needmoreclicks.com a division of Enhancement Technology Ltd