Local Search

Google launched its 'Places' in September 2009 and its aim was to provide a web page for every place they possible could find... including your business. If you're not familiar with what a Google Places result looks like in the search engines, it's the results with the red balloon shaped icon (see image) next to the listing.

So What Makes Google Places So Important?

• 97 percent of consumers search for local businesses online
• According to Google 73 percent of all online activity relates to local content
• Google Places and Google Maps are tied seamlessly together which means that your business information on Places gets conveniently placed on a Google map when it's used for local search.
• It's a free facility provided by those lovely people at Google
• You can add a link to your website (if you have one) from your Places page
• Your page will be 'mobile ready' which means that it displays correctly on a mobile phone. (Please see our Mobile Search page to see how mobile visitors arriving from your Places page can see your existing business website in the correct mobile format.)

So Does My Business Have A Places Page?

There's every possibility that you already have a Places page running for your business but you may not have control of this page. The reason that it might be running without your knowledge is that Google auto-populates many of these pages based on your business details and information it collates from around the web. The problem is that your page may not be as you would like, and may not provide all the information that you'd want made available to the public.

Believe It Or Not!

So here's the crazy thing, if you don't correctly claim your Places page, someone else can. This will result in you losing control of what information is displayed for your business. You may well eventually get control back but that's hassle you don't need.

So Will My Places Page Be On Google's First Page?

Where your business ranks for local search depends on many important factors. Here are just some to consider:

• As a star rating review system is included in your page, lots of nice reviews are a very important part of local search positions
• Correctly optimised images and videos are a big help
• Lots of citations from around the web are crucial
• Well formatted and informative text is a must

So How Can You Help Me?

Regardless of whether or not you have claimed your Google Places page, we are able to help you. We can:

• Register and set up your own Places page and correctly optimise it based on the information you provide
• Put into place the best ways of gaining important citations from other websites
• Set up a system for you to conveniently collect customer reviews
• Set up the most efficient way of tagging images and videos
• Help your business rank higher when important, relevant keywords are searched
• Advise you on how to manage and optimise your Places page moving forward

So What Do You Charge?

To implement all of the above we charge a once only fee of £140. It's vital to remember that as the Places results are now being displayed above regular local search engine rankings, they are now an online marketing force to be reckoned with.

Please either call us on: 01372 320034 or use our contact form if you would like further details or would like us to claim and optimise your Google Places Business page for you.

N.B. We are also able to manage the optimisation of your Places page on a monthly basis should you want to turbo-charge your ranking! Chat to us about this.