Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off

CHAPTER 17

GOOGLE MAPS AND GOOGLE PLACES

If your business serves a customer base within a given geographical region, you could greatly benefit from the exposure you'll gain from listing your business in Google Places.

Even businesses that aren't servicing a set geographical region may still benefit from being listed, but those with a geographic focus will benefit the most.

Since most customers are now using search engines to find businesses and services instead of Yellow Pages, or any other type of business directory, it only makes sense to take advantage of any free opportunity you have to get yourself listed in online directories that service businesses. By far the most popular directory is Google Places.

Rather than create a long chapter describing Google Places in detail, the best place to send you is directly to the informational page on Google itself. Visit:

places.Google.com

and click on “Places for Business” for more information on Google Places.

Alternately you can search Google for the term “Google Places.”

There's nothing overly complicated about the process of getting your business listed. Over time the rules and features will inevitably change, so I won't spend a lot of time on the details in this chapter. There are several strategies you should consider, however, in order to improve your odds of ranking well in the Google Places directory when you show up listed near your competition.

FIRST, LET'S HEAR FROM GOOGLE

According to Google, there's not much you can do to ...