If I use the service area option will it have a negative effect on my rankings in Google local listing?

I think it’s too early to really know but if you are a home based business and you don’t want to make your home address public it is the best option you have. I haven’t seen any effect in ranking but I have heard of a few issues from some SEO marketers. Some reports say that a few business owners, with an actual physical company location, have witnessed a decrease in rankings for the physical location when service areas are indicated.  I really doubt that Google’s intention is to penalize a business owner for using an option that Google is making available. They may need some time to adjust their ranking algorithms but it’s too new of a feature to know for sure at this point.

Can I use location keywords in my categories?

Including location keywords in your categories is a violation of Google’s guidelines and they are enforcing it. If someone tells you it really helped in their ranking just realize that it probably does work but only until their listing gets deactivated.

I have an 800 toll free phone number and a local number which should be my primary number on my Google listing?

Please use the local number in your listing and then make sure it’s on your website and any other directory listings on the Internet. This consistent approach of having all information about your company match everywhere online, builds credibility with Google. So, in addition to having the same phone number be sure that the name of your company (title on your Google Place Page) and the address are also consistent. Note that Google’s guidelines suggests having a local phone number that rings to an individual person rather than a call-center.

Do I need to have a website to rank well on Google Places?

There is lots of proof that a business can rank on Google in the local business results without a website! However, if you are involved in a competitive market, a well optimized website will make a difference in my opinion. I think having a link to a quality company website that provides relevant content, builds trust and credibility with Google and the customer. Plus, making your local business listing your primary online presence may not be the best indication of a viable local operation. So the bottom line is to build a powerful website that is optimized for the same keyword phrases as your Google listing! Doing this can help your business listing to rank better in the local 7- pack and offer value to new customers and clients.

Can I use a P.O. Box instead of a physical address on my local listing?

In the past Google did permit businesses to use a box number but now it is against the Google Places guidelines and can create a negative local ranking factor if you’re using one on your website. I know that many business owners have started using the postal service locations like the UPS Store because you get an actual suite number. I’m sure Google’s technology knows that the business owner is using a postal service rather than an actual physical address but it has not affected ranking as of yet.

What is the most important thing that will improve my business listing ranking on Google?

Citations are the number one most powerful off-page factor! Your profile may be optimized to the hilt but without citations to back up your business information, your ranking will not be as high as it could be. So get as many citations as possible. Just in case you’re unclear what a citation is, a citation is the mentioning of your business on another website. It is usually a mention of your business name, address and phone number. A citation from an authority website like Wikipedia carries more weight than from less prominent sites or directories and I think scores more points for your listing. You can increase your number of citations by utilizing the directories such as YellowPages.com, SuperPages.com and you can check out Universal Business Listings (https://www.ubl.org) which will submit your business listing to the top authority directory for a small annual fee.

The good news is that you don’t need a bricks and mortar address to have a local business listing in Google Places! Work at home moms, painters, carpet installers, locksmiths, limousine companies and any local service company can promote their home based business in Google Places.

Google understands that a businesses credibility is not based on the location of the business and since your initial customer contact is by cell phone or maybe a website and your services are performed at the clients home or place of business you don’t need a physical office location to work from.

As a home based business operator you may not want to advertise your address! And in the past a physical address was required so your only option was to go down to the UPS Store and rent a mailbox to get a local Google listing only to find that you couldn’t get a good placement in “Google Maps” with a rented address.

The bottom line to this posting is that you do qualify for a listing on Google Places in the local business directory?

Google has made some improvements and included some new options designed to help out the home based business owner. You’ll want to take a few minutes to understand just how these new changes can have a positive impact on your marketing exposure.

Google now gives you an option to include the geographic areas that you serve. You can do this only if your business requires you to go to the customer to provide the service or make a delivery. As a home business you will still be required to provide a valid physical address when creating the listing but you can make your address private so it is not shown on Google.

You can show your service area in terms of distance, showing a coverage area of up to 50 miles from your home.

So if your local business offers services that take you directly to the customer you’ll broaden your exposure quickly with Google Places.

If you want to know how to add a service area to your existing business listing, just go directly to Google.com/places and create a listing. It’s free and should only take a about an hour to create the initial page.

Google knows that, they also know that online searchers looking for accounting services want to find local results. People who live in Atlanta don’t want to search for an accountant and find a list of CPA’s in Miami!

Google gets that and this is why they have localized their search engine results with new technology that makes finding local results easy and enjoyable for the user.

What is means to you is that, as the local accountant, you can get the users attention with a listing in the local business directory in Google Places. It’s free to create a listing but if you really want to take full advantage of the full potential that local search can provide, you’ll want to either hire an expert to promote your Google Place Page or take three months off from work to learn how to do it yourself.

Here’s what I’m getting at!

Google Places is a pretty new concept to online marketing for local business owners and as accountants learn how valuable this stuff is going to be for their accounting firm, offering more marketing exposure than pay-per-click or any other advertising source online or offline, Google Places is going to become very competitive! Accountants who do it right and build out their local listing with all the elements that Google is looking for will be the accountant who is heavily rewarded with new local clients.

Before you head over to Google.com/places and check out Google Places, I want to explain why you’ll need to out perform your local competing accountants.

Everyone who creates a listing will get indexed in the Google Maps local business directory but it is where you get placed in the listings that matters.

When a potential client in Atlanta types in “accountant” in the Google search box they will be taken to the search results page showing seven local Atlanta accountants at the very top, in front of all the generic websites.

This prime virtual real estate area is the “local business results for accountants near Atlanta” and the local listings are highlighted by a big local map on the left side of the local listings. We call this the 7-Pack and it is where you will really want for your business to be showcased. Because if you look just beneath the seventh listing you’ll see a link for “more results near Atlanta Ga.” This link will take you to Google Maps where there are another 8,000 accounting firms indexed. You don’t want to end up there. It’s the advertisers graveyard and you’ll miss out in a big way.

As you looking through the Google Places website and getting excited about all the possibilities, take the time to learn everything you can to out perform other accountants in your community! This is your chance to propel your business to the top with a local Google listing in the 7-Pack.

Once you see how valuable this marketing tool is going to be to your accounting firm please come back to my website and request a free marketing analysis for your firm. I’ll take the time to research your options and give you my best opinion for a game plan to get you on page one in the local business results on Google.

Because Google realizes that just about everybody online today who is searching for services or products wants a local solution, Google has responded with Google Places! Shoppers want local companies to pop up in the search results more than ever before!

With an emphasis on local business your time has arrived for marketing smarter with a much smaller advertising budget. The facts are obvious! If you are a small business your success depends on being found online. This is the trend today.

With Google Places you don’t even need a website to be found! Boy, how things have changed in the online marketing world!

To be found by your local marketplace it’s not websites that rank high any longer. No matter how much your local or national competition spends on developing their website they can’t out-rank you on “Google Places!” That is if you follow some really simple steps and get your page ranking in the first page of local business listings.

This is a marketing advantage that is yours for the taking! I can guarantee you that other local companies that offer the same services or products are not savvy to Google Places, as of yet!

It’s going to take a little understanding of what Google expects from you as a local small business owner and you will need to know just how to build the perfect Google Place Page to get highly ranked but that won’t take as much sweet and equity that the useless website did.

The size of your city and degree of competition will have a lot to do with how much work will be required to get your business on the first page of Google for your prime keywords. The first page of the local search results is a box we call the 7-pack. High on the page you’ll see a map and seven listings that match your keywords.

Check it out for yourself…go to Google and do a search for a local service. For example: Type the word “dentist” into Google and you’ll get a local listing directory with a map in a box with either three or seven listings. Notice that you no longer have to type the name of the city in your keyword phrase to get local results! Cool!

The revolutionary local Internet is focusing on you and you need to take advantage of it today…

Below are the resources from the folks at the Google Places website, including a 40 minute webinar that shows you how to create a Google Place Page for your local small business.

This is a brilliant concept that has localized the Internet and allows us small business owners to compete online for the first time. It also helps people find what they are looking for much easier so they can make a more informed decisions about where to go and who to buy from.

From electricians and plumbers to pizza parlors and tattoo shops, as well as non-business places like recreational parks, non-profit organizations and schools, Google Places is the place to focus your marketing efforts for the greatest advertising exposure.

Official Google Blog: Introducing Google Places

Today the Local Business Center is becoming Google Places. Why? Millions of people use Google every day to find places in the real world, and we want to better connect Place Pages — the way that businesses are being found today — with …

Publish Date: 04/20/2010 8:00

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/introducing-google-places.html

Google Places

Google Places allows business owners to claim their business and customize their listing on Google Maps. Updated business details will appear on Google Maps, Google.com search and mobile results, and GOOG-411. Advanced features, including coupons and…

Google Places How-To Webinar

Want to learn how to verify your listing on Google? Watch this step-by-step webinar to ensure your information is accurate and so that people can find you.

If you have looked through the Google Places website above and watched the webinar you have a general idea how this all works and can probably see the importance to jump on it as soon as possible.

I’m a firm believer in doing things that pertain to my business the right way, the first time I try it. The same holds true for Google Places.

You can easily claim you listing and create it in a few minutes but that is not the point. If you want to get the most out of this fantastic advertising tool then hire a pro who has a much better chance of getting your listing in the seven pack, next to the map on page one of the keyword phrase that your potential customers/clients are typing into Google.

Google Places is the local listing directory for local businesses and a real gift to the small companies that utilize its massive potential.

The Internet is greatly underestimated and extremely misunderstood. Just as soon as we master SEO and get our website ranked to our satisfaction the rules change and we end up on page 50 in the search engine results!

So, is Google Places the next big disappointment for small business owners and Internet marketers. I think it’s the real deal! Google Places may be the face of the new beginning and the way websites, articles and information is going to be processed for a long time to come.

Google says “claim your listing” it is so easy and only takes five minutes to be listed in the local directory. I’m sorry but that is bad advise. In the world of business marketing you’ll only get five minutes of  value for five minutes of effort. It’s a time tested and proven hard fact and here’s why!

Google Places has such an unlimited amount of potential for a small business owner but if you think that you can rush through the categories and create a lousy Google Places page in five minutes you’re going to be doing an invaluable disservice to your business.

The page that you create on Google Places has to be a well crafted, content rich resume, with a descriptive breakdown of your products or services and just the right mixture of salesmanship.

You really must understand keyword research to find the best category for you listing to appear. I want my small business to show up on the first page of Google in the “7-Pack” where the map and all the action is. That is not going to happen for any business that is in a competitive market or a larger metropolitan area.

When you create your Google Places page you have to have the knowledge and expertise behind you for creating for following:

• the business name
• address
• phone number
• listing category
• photos
• videos
• coupons
• attributes

You may be thinking just these question require a simple  common sense answer but that will not always be true and if your market is competitive you’ll never do well in Google Places using common sense. There’s a simple strategy you really must master for each of these questions if you want to have a chance of making Google Places the most valuable marketing tool of your generation.

I believe this will be the most effective advertising strategy for small business to ever come along. Google Places is free and affordable to hire a professional marketer to craft your life long listing! The Goggle Places page will offer unlimited local marketing exposure to the business owners who spend more than five minutes creating the listing.

The Google Places page has all the tools to give potential customers or clients all the information they’ll need to make a decision about whether they are going to do business with you before they meet with you in person.

Google Places was created to make for an enjoyable searching experience for online visitors to easily find local businesses online. For the first time in the Internets short history, a small mom and pop convenience store can compete with a major supermarket chain for high search rankings on Google.

People today use the Internet like our parents used the Yellow Pages to find local businesses. But unlike a Yellow Page add you can find out everything about the business from one spot.

Your website, phone number, descriptions of services, coupons, reviews and pictures are invaluable from the consumers standpoint. So you can see that it’s very important to make the Google Places page as informative as possible to the potential customer.

Understanding modern small business marketing tools like this local online directory is what will make you a modern day company standing above and beyond the competitor down the street.

There is a lot more to creating you page than meets the eye. I know it is being showcased by Google as simple and the initial process of claiming your free page is quite easy but the marketing aspect that can offer you enormous exposure is going to require some expertise and skill in marketing and search engine optimization.

More people search for businesses online than anywhere else, a statistic that’s not going change anytime soon!

A website is a nice start but really doesn’t do much to help local business owners find online customers and clients. It is tough to compete with the national chains and larger companies with massive advertising budget and the appetite for destroying their competition.

The good news is that 2010 is going to be the year for the small business who takes Internet marketing seriously and focuses on social marketing, Twitter,  Facebook and Google Places.

All of these business building concepts require knowledge of the sources, so if you attempt to manage your own Internet campaign, take the time to learn the craft and create a quality presence that exhibits you as the expert and leader in your local community within your niche market.

You can take a stab at building you Google Places Page but take the time to understand what it is you’re doing. Most people who build a website think that once it’s completed you’re done! In reality it’s just the beginning. The same holds true for Google Pages, Facebook and Twitter.

Use a local professional and don’t gamble with your online success.

Here are several Flagler Beach small business websites that are built, optimized, ranked and ready for your content. Just $49.00 monthly for the most comprehensive small business marketing campaign ever created for your targeted Internet customers and clients. We will add your content and customize the site to your specifications. Our technical staff is the brightest and most amazing marketers on the Internet and with our help you will dominate your local marketplace!

Each website is optimized for the search engines! Once we load your details it will be submitted to a massive amount of online sources!

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What Search Engines do you submit to?
Google, Yahoo, Lycos, HotBot, Ask, AOL, Netscape, MSN and Excite to name just a few. We submit to a total number of 139 search engines.

What sites do you submit bookmarks to?
A1Webmarks, Bookmark Tracker, Fark, Google Bookmarks, Indian Pad, MyLinkVault, Searchles, Cloudy Tags, White Links, Bookmax, EasyBM, Spurl, DZone, Delicious, Weblinkr, Suptoronto, Backflip, Damnsexy, Kredyty, Mpog, Scuttle, Kredyty, Tagza, Dizzed, Blurpalicious, Bukmark, Simpy, URL Bookmarks, Quadriot, Propeller.

What Directories do you submit to?
Too many to list. Currently we submit to 1,000+ directories.

Where Else Will You Promote My New Small Business Website?
It will maintain an active listing on CraigsList.org, page one listing in Google Local, business local listing on the new Bing search directory, FaceBook pages and on YouTube with a personalized video slide  presentation of your business!

Ready-To-Go Websites Ranking On Page One Of Google Search…
We have over one hundred ready-to-go, up and running optimized websites that are ranked on page of one of Google and Bing Search! They are getting traffic now and need a business to support! The sites are ready for your content and personalization! We can customize the site with a photo header and pictures of your business or staff.

Claims Your Website Here…

Here are several Ormond Beach small business websites that are built, optimized, ranked and ready for your content. Just $49.00 monthly for the most comprehensive small business marketing campaign ever created for your targeted Internet customers and clients. We will add your content and customize the site to your specifications. Our technical staff is the brightest and most amazing marketers on the Internet and with our help you will dominate your local marketplace!

Each website is optimized for the search engines! Once we load your details it will be submitted to a massive amount of online sources!

Ormond Beach Small Business Website Gallery

Ormond Beach Attorney - OrmondBeachAttorney.net

Ormond Beach Bed And Breakfast - OrmondBeachBedAndBreakfast.com

Ormond Beach Chiropractor - OrmondBeachChiropractor.com

Ormond Beach Electrician - OrmondBeachElectrician.net

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Ormond Beach Insurance - OrmondBeachInsurance.net

Ormond Beach Storage - OrmondBeachStorage.net

Ormond Beach Wedding - OrmondBeachWedding.com

What Search Engines do you submit to?
Google, Yahoo, Lycos, HotBot, Ask, AOL, Netscape, MSN and Excite to name just a few. We submit to a total number of 139 search engines.

What sites do you submit bookmarks to?
A1Webmarks, Bookmark Tracker, Fark, Google Bookmarks, Indian Pad, MyLinkVault, Searchles, Cloudy Tags, White Links, Bookmax, EasyBM, Spurl, DZone, Delicious, Weblinkr, Suptoronto, Backflip, Damnsexy, Kredyty, Mpog, Scuttle, Kredyty, Tagza, Dizzed, Blurpalicious, Bukmark, Simpy, URL Bookmarks, Quadriot, Propeller.

What Directories do you submit to?
Too many to list. Currently we submit to 1,000+ directories.

Where Else Will You Promote My New Small Business Website?
It will maintain an active listing on CraigsList.org, page one listing in Google Local, FaceBook pages and on YouTube with a personalized video slide  presentation of your business!

Ready-To-Go Websites Ranking On Page One Of Google Search…
We have over one hundred ready-to-go, up and running optimized websites that are ranked on page of one of Google and Bing Search! They are getting traffic now and need a business to support! The sites are ready for your content and personalization! We can customize the site with a photo header and pictures of your business or staff.

Claim Your Website Here…