You are a step away from completing your SEO home! But before you do, we still need to take a look at Step 8, (Landscaping and Gardening: Google local). Remember more than a decade ago when we’d refer to our telephone directories for a number to a local business? It was daunting going through all those pages and still not finding what you’re looking for! Well Google has adopted the same concept but simpler and easier to use, a great tool in your customers finding your business online; Google Places.
You’re probably wondering how landscaping and gardening of your home has anything to do with Google Places. Well, it does. Think of it, your landscape and gardening are different from your neighbour’s and that’s for a reason, you have different taste but more importantly people can distinguish your home from others. The same goes for Google Places, businesses list their companies in order to be found easily than their competition locally.
It goes without saying that it is highly important for your business to be listed on Google Places in order for your customers to find you much easier.
We’ll be sharing with you what Google Places is all about and how this feature can make a difference in the success of your business.
What is Google Places?
Google Places is a business directory formulated by Google which categorizes local businesses, neighbourhoods and main attractions of an area. Any business can be listed on Google Places, provided that it is legal and has a registered address. When you are listed on Google Places things like a map of your business, telephone number, website link, photos of your business, operation hours, customer reviews are featured on your profile. Just one important thing, you can be listed on Google Places but not necessarily rank on the first page. It pretty much goes with your SEO.
What Google Places really does for your business is distinguish your products from other local businesses. NAP also helps for search engines to pick up on your website’s geographic presence. We’ll discuss with your shortly what Nap is all about.
What is NAP?
NAP is an abbreviation for Name, Address and Phone Number. With regard to SEO is essential for your website to have NAP as search engines always look out for websites that have are in tune with geo-targeted searches. In order for search engines to pick up your website for geo-targeted searches, make sure that all the information on your website is correct. The trick is listing your website with as many reputable local directories out there .i.e. Foursquare.com, Yelp, Citysearch.com etc…
With Google Places what you have to remember is more and more people are mobile nowadays, what that means is people have access to the internet at all times. Therefore you have to make sure that your business is listed on Google Places so you can stay connected to your customers anywhere, everywhere.
Take for instance if a customer goes to the mall and is looking for a particular item, searches for it on Google and cannot identify you instantly because you are not listed on Google Places, you’ll definitely lose out on business. Nowadays, you have to think of both desktop and mobile.
Now that you know what Google Places is, let us take you through the benefits and of using Google Places.
What are the benefits of using Google Places?
• You can reach millions of users quickly with no cost at all!
• It is practical and easy to use.
• It’s easy to sign-up for Google Places.
• You get to edit your listing.
• You can customize your listing with photos, videos, coupons for customers etc…
That covers the benefits of using Google Places, how about we look at guidelines on how to use Google Places.
• Only business owners may verify the Google Places account.
• Preferably use an email account under your business domain when registering on Google Places.
• Use your own business name without any extras .i.e. marketing tagline.
• Use an accurate business address.
• Also, use the phone number connected to your business not any other.
• You should select only one.
• Write a great description of your business.
Now that we have taken you through Google Places, let us see which practises are best in dealing with SEO.
Finally! Now that you have completed building your SEO home, the best thing for you to do is install fencing and a security system for your safety. Which brings us to our very last step (step 9 Fencing & Security System: Best Practises). Best Practises is your SEO security system. What this means is, if you are do things ‘by the book’ and engage in White-Hat SEO then you have nothing to worry about either than improving your SEO efforts.
Let us move straight into the guidelines to successful SEO.
The best practises for SEO are as follows:
• Include a keyword into what your company does (nature of business) in your domain name. And try by all means to keep it short. For example: ideas4usocialmarketing.co.za is better than ideas4u-socialmarketing-capetown-sa.co.za.
• Looking at web hosting, get a reliable host that is sure to run your website 24/7 without any hassles. An effective website host with enable spiders to crawl through your website but most importantly for customers will have access to you the entire time.
• Your website design should allow accessibility at all times for all devices .i.e. tablets, smartphones. Nowadays majority of search happens in mobile devices, your website should be accessible everywhere.
• Good, valuable, informative content is key in distinguishing your website from others. Ensure that your content is readable, understandable and engaging. Include keywords in your content that will enable your customers to find your website much easier.
• Use descriptive anchor text in your content. For example: instead of using Please click here for more information, you can rather rephrase it and say go to the following link for Facebook personal services.
• As challenging as it may be, stay away from link scheming. In order for you to gain links rather focus on producing great content that other people will want to share. It you do this correctly, linking building should not be a problem.
• Social Media Marketing is an effective way of getting your website to be indexed by search engines. Let alone the fact that it helps tons in your link-building efforts.
• Google Webmaster .i.e. Google Analytics & Google Webmaster accounts will help you to see how well your website is doing in terms of SEO.
That pretty much covers the basics of SEO, and the completion of your beautiful home! We trust that you had quite a journey and learnt much about Search Engine Optimisation. 🙂
