No doubt there are many small businesses emerging every day. Innovation and ideas have always been aplenty in the market, but now there are people who are investing in this ideas and thus we see small online businesses everywhere. Many of these businesses are locality-based and face a lot on issues when it comes to improving their rank in Google Places. For such business, here are five things that I learned from an SEO agency in Sydney which are really helpful in getting top rankings on Google Places. These five things will only be applicable once such businesses have optimized their Place page.
Business Listings
Getting a good ranking in Google Places comes only when Google has verified that you have a real and running business. Google ensures this by determining how frequently a particular business name, its address and phone number is listed or mentioned on the internet. It’s similar to how backlinks act for common search engine optimization. The more such mentions you have, the better search rankings you get. Hint: One of the easiest ways of getting cited is to submit your company to national and local business directories.
Consistent Name Address and Phone number (NAP)
The manner in which your business NAP is listed on your websites contact page, in the local and national directories, and on the Google Places page should be consistent and updated. You really need to ensure that your business NAP is consistent across the web. Google website crawlers normally get confused if you list different NAP on multiple directories.
NAP On Website
You further need to list the name, address and phone number of your business on your website. And it should be clearly done. It’s good if you have all this mentioned in the header or footer of your website. This ensures that it shows on every page. It’s also completely fine to have the name, address and phone number listed on the contact page. There are bonus points if you do all this using the Schema markup.
Embedded Google Map
You must have seen embedded Google map on most of the website’s contact pages. We believe it is a really good practice if you have your Google Places listing embedded on your business’s contact page. This allows Google to be certain of your location and the address you have mentioned is also correct. Such practices improve the authenticity of your business and assist you in getting top rankings in Google Places.
Reviews
Reviews are always important. You really need everyone to review your page. Just think about it, if there is a page in front of Google with 20 or more reviews, wouldn’t it want to make this page visible on the map? It will also prefer it over businesses or pages with no of very fewer reviews. Reviews show that there are people rapidly visiting your business and are in contact with it. This is very good for authenticity which is very important for Google too.
