Running a business and driving customers can be a tedious task. It is important for the business that its customer can find it without any hassle. A lot of question arises among local business owners regarding improving the Google Places ranking of the businesses. It is essential to optimize the Google Places page, and it boils down to key five factors that are as follows:
- The first one is Business Listings. When it comes to getting your business ranked high within Google Places, it is important for the business to get verified by the Google that it is real. It is done by Google by determining how often the business name along with address and phone number, in short NAP, is listed or cited on the internet. It is similar to how backlinks work for SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The more you have them, the better the search rankings will be. The easiest way in order to get listed or cited is to submit the business to local as well as national business directories. There are companies which provide a service of listing the business in the top directories in which your business is not listed in. You can check various citation building service.
- The second thing is a consistent NAP. The method the business NAP is cited or listed in these different directories on the Google Places page, and websites contact page must be quite consistent and has to be up to date. It is essential to ensure that the business NAP is consistent all across the web. Google website crawlers will get confused in case you have a different NAP which is listed on various directories.
In order to make sure that the NAP is consistent, you need to do a search for the business. Now you need to click to see what different listing of the business looks like. If the information provided by the business is incorrect on the website, then you need to have it changed. You can use Woodfellow Flooring which can do changes in business address. Many services provide a citation report service which allows the business to find all the different citations of the business. You can also check out different citation services available in the market.
- Another important thing is a NAP on the website. You will also require to list or cite your business name, address as well as a phone number on the website. There have been many SEO companies which says that it is good to have them present in the footer or even on the header of the website such that it shows on each and every page. It is a good practice to have the name, address as well as phone number listed on the website’s contact page. The bonus points is if you do this by using Schema markup.
- The next thing which is quite essential is embedded Google Map. If you go to the contact page of any website with the well-established contact page, you will see that it has an embedded Google map. It is considered to be a good practice to have the businesses Google Places listing which is embedded in the contact page. This allows Google to be certain that your business is located at the address which you have listed by means of confirming that with the Places listing. Embedding is quite easy. Just search for a business name in Google Maps. Once you have searched and found it, then click on the three lines beside the business name in the search bar present on the top left. Then you can click on the “Share or Embed Map.”
After making the selection, then you need to click the embed map option at the pop-up box’s top. Then you need to copy the iframe code and then paste it into the contact page. The last and most important thing as well as a factor to improve the ranking of the Google Places page is mentioned below.
- The another important is now to get everyone to review the page of your business. Just wonder that if the Google sees a page with more than 30 plus reviews, then wouldn’t it like to show that the page in the mapped listing over the page which doesn’t have any reviews? This is according to Google’s approach to search. It offers the searcher with the most essential and relevant and essential search result and business.
Now you need to evaluate the rankings. Once you have changed what is above mentioned and still finding that the rankings are low then you need to have business to be cited more. You can do this by two ways:
- Find out where the competitors who are ranking higher than your website are cited. Simply do a search for their business and if they come up in any particular directory, find out if your business is also listed there. In case this is not done, then add it.
- You can also take advantage of citation building service which offers great services in building the citation of the website.
Much like Search Engine Optimization or SEO, Google utilizes the business citations as a method to provide the searchers with important as well as established businesses within their Google Places rankings. You need to follow the above-mentioned guidelines to improve your ranking. In case you need any help in the rankings, you can check different packages offered by services which are aimed at improving the rankings.
It is essential for any business to get listed in most of the directories. It is important that the NAP is mentioned on the contact page and other pages at the right location. The business should also make sure that it has embedded Google Maps. It makes it easier for the customers to find the business. The business also needs to have more reviews. It helps the Google in placing the business above the businesses which have lesser reviews. Another key aspect remains that NAP has to be consistent throughout. It is better to get your business to be listed or cited in local directories. A business requires its customers to find it quite easily. It can also take use of the various citation building services in order to improve its ranking. This is how a local business can improve the map rankings.