Why You Should Be Using Google Places For Your Business Advertising
Choosing how to get your business advertised on the internet is not an easy decision. There are so many different advertising platforms offering you incredulous amounts of traffic in exchange for large amounts of your advertising budget. With so many options available it’s difficult to know who to believe and who to trust. I’d like to make you aware of a new way of marketing and promoting your business that many of your competition have likely never even heard of. It’s called Google Places and has many benefits which I’ll now discuss in more detail
The most important consideration is the fact that it’s free. Yes you did read that correctly, it’s not a typo. If you advertise your business with Google Places it will not cost you a cent. Many forms of online advertising cost money, for example Pay-Per-Click (PPC) can seriously eat into your advertising budget if you’re not careful plus there’s a large learning curve required before you likely see any success.
For many free equals sub-standard. This is not the case with Google Places advertising and I’ll explain why.
What you need to know and fully understand is that Google Places is owned by Google. Now that’s fairly obvious right but think about the benefits for your business. Google is by far the most popular and frequently used search engine in the world. Millions of people use Google’s search engine every day to help them find the information they need. Not only that but Google are constantly tweaking and testing their search engine algorithm to ensure they give people the exact information they are searching for.
Now imagine how having a strong presence on the first page of Google’s search engines can benefit your business. Increased visibility on Google equals potentially massive exposure. Increased exposure on the first page of Google’s search engine will ensure surges of highly targeted traffic to your Google Places listing.
A huge advantage of using Google Places is that it’s very easy to set up your listing. If you know how to type and operate a mouse then you’ve got the essential skills required to set up a basic listing Everything is step-by-step although there are certain insider strategies you need to be aware of to maximize the effectiveness of your Google Places ad.
Hopefully you now understand the key benefits of getting your business listed on Google Places. Considering it’s free, owned by the number one search engine in the world and easy to set-up the decision to choose Google Places as part of your overall marketing strategy is an easy one to make.
ADVANCED TECHNIQUES
We are devoted to bringing you advanced techniques and resources that you might not easily uncover by yourself. These techniques come as a result of more than 14 months of actually working within the system.
To save you time and to help you eliminate frustrations, here is a list that you can refer to after your Google Places listing has been functional for about two months.
You might have increased success by utilizing and applying some of these techniques prior to the two-month time frame. However, if you want to increase your ranking, get more new business customers, and make more sales, this is where you will find that information.
In no particular order, here are the insider tips and tricks.
Often overlooked when creating a new business listing, is the importance of recording your business data into an electronic document. Although this is so simple, most business owners don’t do it, and their listings fail miserably. The secret technique is that every time you list, submit, talk about or mention your business that all your contact information must be presented in the same way. It should match your business name and data that was entered at Google Places.
This is especially true for citation resources, directories, and review sites. The search engines love discovering businesses online where all location information matches.
Buy a domain name that already has page rank, that contains your keyword phrase, and is priced around $50. A seasoned and established domain name that is more than two years old is easier to rank than a brand new domain name that you just bought today.
Look at other Google Places listings and click on their information page, especially if they are marketing to the same target audience that you are. Especially if they are ranking high for a specific keyword, look to see where their citations and reviews are coming from. You might even want to open up a document file or spreadsheet and record the URLs as places where you can submit your listings to.
Take the time to submit your listing to the top 10 directories which are, Yellow Pages, Super Pages, City Search, Insider Pages, Yahoo Local, Localize, ODP/Dmoz, Gimpsy, Goguides, and Joeant. Or, hire someone to submit your site to 100 directories.
Search for local directories where you live. For example, you would combine your keyword with your city, plus the word “directory.” Thus, your search phrase would look like this: fish and chips + Seattle + directory. The search results would return a list of directories in your local area that will be golden and targeted for your business.
To get your site and your listing ranked faster than four months, create simple social networking sites named with your keyword in the title that openly displays your business name and your business information. Some sites that have been successful are found at Weebly, HubPages, Squidoo,Facebook,Twitter, and LinkedIn. The goal is to get as many places as possible mentioning your business name, your phone number, your address, your location, and what your specialties are.
Become a detective to learn more about the businesses who compete with you. How do you do this? Whenever you see a listing on the Internet that’s on the first page of Google for Google Places, click through the links such as reviews, and even the section that says “more about this place.”The information you’ll find will save you months of research. Are they using 10 photos and five videos to promote their listing? Is their content focused on their keywords? Study listings and become a copycat. Whatever is working for them could work for you, too. Do they have lots of reviews? Then that’s where you need to spend your time in order to get more reviews and more customers.
Offer a bonus, a discount, a coupon, a free product, or some other incentive for your customers to leave their review of your business on one of your top review sites. This is a new tactic for online businesses to use. However, off-line retail businesses have been doing this for years. Have you ever looked at a store receipt and seen that if you call a specific number and rate the service, that you get five dollars off your next purchase? Try it. It works.
Adding coupons to your listing will improve the number of people who click through to your website take advantage of your cost-saving offer.
You would be amazed at the tips, tricks, and techniques that are openly discussed on the Google Places help forum. You need to spend about 30 minutes inside the help forum. You will learn so much. In fact, don’t make this a one-time experience. If you truly want to improve your listing and your ranking for your site, do yourself a favor. Put this task on your daily to-do list. There are more secrets and techniques revealed on this forum than you could imagine.
The latest trend in the past two years and being copied more and more everyday are the companies who offer a daily deal on a product or a service in your local area. Every morning an email arrives with the latest deal. You have 12 hours to purchase the deal of the day. You can use the coupon usually any time within the next 12 months. Sites such as, www.groupon.com, www.livingsocial.com, www.localtwist.com and hundreds more are available for you to participate in.
Uniqueness of this type of advertising is that you do not have to spend any money to get your business advertised on any of these services. The company helps you write the ad, helps you take the photos, and helps you with suggestions on promoting what you are selling. They take a percentage of the total sales, and at the end of the day, they mail you a check for the profits that you made. The bonus is that you can get hundreds and even thousands of new customers in one day who willingly pay to receive your product or service. And you don’t even need a list or a website to get this done. Do you think advertising your business through this type of service would get your business name, address, and phone number out there? Again, aren’t you glad you got your hands on this report?
This technique alone is worth hundreds of dollars. And what if you offered a bonus or special incentive to everyone who left you a review? Do you think your Google Places listing would become popular and rank higher and bring you more traffic and customers than you ever imagined?
To get a FREE REPORT about how marketing through Google Places can change your business visit us at AlconPlaces.com.
