Getting the Most from your Google Places Account.

Small Business Owners: If you don’t have a Google Places Account for your business, you should set one up right away. Google Places is how you get your business to display on Google Maps. Not having a Google Places Account is like not having a listing in the Yellow Pages back in the 1980’s. Setting up a Google Places Account doesn’t take much time and it’s a great way to advertise your business – for free. Just go to places.google.com to set yours up.
If you already have a Google Places Account, to get the most out of it, you need to optimize it. Optimizing means to “teach” Google to display your listing when someone enters your search phrase. For more on how to pick your search phrase, see my article on “The “Key” to SEO – Selecting the right Keywords”.
The purpose of today’s article is to give you a few tips to help your Google Places Account get listed on Page One of Google’s search results.

Google Places Optimization Tip #1:

The first trick is to find the right keyword phrase for your local business. For more on how to do this, see my article titled “The Key to SEO – Selecting the Right Keywords”.
As an example for this article, if you own a pizza restaurant in Anytown, VA, then your keyword phrase should probably be “pizza restaurant Anytown, VA”. The first half of the phrase describes WHAT your business is and would be something that a person would enter into a search engine (ie. “pizza restaurant”). The second half is WHERE you are located (ie. “Anytown, VA”).

Google Place Optimization Tip #2:

Once you have the right keyword phrase, change your Google Places description so that it includes that exact phrase as the first few words, like this:

“Pizza Restaurant in Any Town, VA. Our pizza restaurant sells pizza, subs, gyros and Italian dishes. Pizza delivery and carry-out available. Serving Any Town, Major City and Tiny Suburb, VA.”

Google Places Optimization Tip #3:

Next, make sure your Google Places Categories are all optimized. You get five categories to choose from. The first one has to be from Google’s pre-determined categories. In our example, we would select “Pizza Restaurant”. The next four categories can be any phrase you want. You may want to try different variations of phrases that some would enter into a search engine to find what you sell, like: “pizza delivery”, “pizza coupons”, “Italian food” and “Italian restaurant”.

In Google Places, this is where you set-up your Company Description and Categories.

Google Places Optimization Tip #4:

There is a section at the end of the Google Places set-up screen called “Additional Details”. This is a section that allows you to add any additional details about your company. This is a good place to reinforce your keywords again. Remember, most people when looking for a business like yours will enter keywords that describe what they need. Google uses the example “Parking available : Yes”. “Parking” is probably not something I would search for if I was looking for pizza. However, I might search Google for “Pizza delivery”, so “Pizza Delivery : Yes” would be a good option. You might also consider phrases like “Restaurant type : Italian”, “Carry-out : yes”, “Pizza coupons : Available on Website”, etc… If you need ideas for keywords, your Pay-per-Click data is an excellent source. If you don’t have any Pay-per-Click data, check out our $900 Google Trial.

This is the "Additional Details" section in the Google Places Account set up.

Google Places Optimization Tip #5:

Add a link to your Google Places pages to your website. Once your Google Places page is up, in the upper right corner, there is a link called “Link”. If you click that link, it will give you the URL for your Google Places Page.

Google Places Optimization Tip #6:

Get your customers to add reviews to your Google Places page. The easiest way to do this is to ask your best customers to go to your website, click the link you made in Tip #5, and add a review. These reviews make your page stand out and people tend to trust someone with 10 reviews and a 4.8 star rating. Never add any reviews yourself!

Google Places Optimization Tip #7:

Add several images to your Google Places Account. I like to rename the images to they match the company’s keyword phrase. In other words, if the image you are about to add is “IMG1023.jpg”, then rename it something like “pizza-restaurant-anytown-va-1.jpg” before adding it to your Google Places Account.

Google Places Optimization Tip #8:

Add a YouTube video. Google owns YouTube, so if you have a video on YouTube, add it. If you can, make the name of the video your keyword phrase – ie. “Pizza Restaurant Anytown, VA”.

Google Places Optimization Tip #9:

Make sure your Google Places Account is complete. Fill out all the fields you can, including the “Hours of operation” and “Payment options”.
If your listing doesn’t show up in a month or two for your keyword phrase, then try a new keyword phrase and re-optimize your Places Account. If you want to get even more from your Google Places Account, call us to find out how we can use Google Pay-per-Click to increase the traffic to your Google Places Account.
I hope this helps.

The “Key” to SEO – Selecting the Right Keywords.

This article is the second in a series written for small, local business owners about Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  SEO is the art of getting your website on Page One of Google.  In this article, I’m going to discuss the basics behind creating your “ideal keyword phrase”.  In my next few articles, I’ll describe ways to strategically place this phrase on your website and other websites to get your business on Page One of Google.
For small, local businesses that want to be listed on Page One of Google, the “key to keywords” is selecting a good phrase that best describes your business AND your location.  Once you determine a good phrase for your business, you can start adding that phrase strategically throughout your website and other places on the internet.  This should dramatically increase your chances of being on Page One of Google when someone enters that phrase.
The ideal phrase for most local businesses should be a combination of two basic phrases – the “WHAT” phrase and the “WHERE” phrase.

• The “WHAT” phrase is a keyword or phrase that accurately describes your best product or service.  By ‘best’, I mean your most profitable, most asked for, best selling or your customer’s favorite product or service.
• The “WHERE” phrase is simply the city and state from the physical address of your store or office location.

First, let’s talk about the “WHERE” phrase.  Small businesses often find it difficult to compete with national companies or franchises.  These large companies often have large budgets, can afford the very best SEO guys and can dominate keywords on a national level.  For a small business with small budgets, the idea is to dominate the local level since most of your customers probably come from within 10 or 20 miles of your location.  By adding your business’s city and state to your “ideal keyword phrase”, your website can appear above the national companies on Page One of Google.  It is important to select your business’s location and make sure it’s the exact city in your physical location’s address.  In other words, if you are located in a suburb of a major city, don’t try to use the name of the major city.  I’ll discuss the reasons why this is important when I talk about how to optimize your Google Places page.
Now, let’s look at how to find good keywords for the “WHAT” phrase.  If you want to spend the money, most decent SEO companies can generate a list of keywords for you.  If you don’t want to spend the money, you can do it yourself.  Here’s how:

• Make a list of 10 or so phrases that you think someone might enter into Google to find your products or service, other than your business name.
• Circle the phrases that describe products and services that generate the most profit for you.
• Circle the phrase or two that most prospect customers call about.
• Circle the phrase or phrases that you would have been listed under in the Yellow Pages.
• Ask several friends what they would enter into Google if they wanted to find a business like yours.  Circle or add any of their responses.

You should have a list of a few circled phrases.  If one or two stand out as clear winners, that’s your phrase.
If you want a more scientific way to determine your best WHAT phrase, ask us about Third Marble Marketing’s SEO Suggestion Report.
To finish, simply add the “WHAT” phrase to the “WHERE” phrase.  For example, if you own a pizza shop in Anytown, VA, your keyword phrase might be “pizza restaurant Anytown VA”.  If your pizza restaurant has a very profitable pizza delivery service, then your keyword phrase might be “pizza delivery Anytown, VA”.
In my next article, I’ll discuss what you should do with this keyword phrase to get your business exposure on Page One of Google.
I hope this helps.

Where to Put KeyWords to be on Page One of Google (Part 1)

Once you know your “ideal keyword phrase” (see last month’s article), you need to know where to put those words on your website. So the first thing we need to know about Google, and other search engines, is what they look for and how they index websites.  In other words, how do search engines determine if your site is relevant to the keywords being entered?  There are numerous things that make up the search algorithms.  I believe these are the most important factors:

• Words in the URL (ie. www.keywords.com/key-words/)
• Title Tags
• Meta Description
• Header Tags
• Alt Tags
• Links
• Copy (including bold font words)

Search Engine Optimization of URLs

Let’s say your “ideal keyword phrase” is “pizza restaurant Anytown VA”.  If your URL is “www.mom-and-pop-italian.com”, this isn’t going to help much.  If you have extra money to spend, consider buying the URL “www.pizza-restaurant-anytown-va.com” and having someone create a second website for you.  If that’s not practical, then you may want to ask your web person to change the URL for your home page to “www.mom-and-pop-italian.com/pizza-restaurant-anytown-va”.
If the URLs on some of your pages look like “www.mom-and-pop-italian.com/page=123″, then change the “/page=123″ to “/pizza-restaurant”.  If these options aren’t appealing, don’t worry, we have a few more tricks.

A little about Google

Before we get into Title Tags, I’d like to talk a little about Google.  Google’s mission is to provide their searchers with the most relevant search results possible.  So when someone enters keywords into Google, what Google displays on their Search Results Page better have those keywords, otherwise Google will look foolish.  Makes sense, right?  So if we understand what shows up on their search results, we’ll know where to put our keywords.  Below is a screen shot of a search result…

Three pieces of a Google Search Result and where they come from.

A = Title Tag, B = Meta Description, C = URL

So if the Title Tag, the Meta Description and the URL are what Google is showing you in their search engine results, then it stands to reason that they would be the most important words on a website for search engine optimization.  If these three elements contain your ideal keyword phrase, then you’ve greatly increased your chances of being on Page One.

Search Engine Optimization of Title Tags

If you want to know what your current Title Tag is on your website’s home page is, simply go to your website and look in the far upper right of browser window, or, if you have browser tabs, you can find it there.  Here is an example of where to look:

This shows the location of the Title Tag and the URL.

Once you know your “ideal keyword phrase”, change your Title Tag so it matches your ideal keyword phrase.  Your Title Tag should be less than 60 characters, including spaces.  You should also avoid short words like “in”, “at”, “the”, etc.  Try not to repeat any one word more than once or Google will think you are spamming your Title Tag.  In the pizza example, a good Title Tag might be “Pizza Restaurant Anytown VA | Italian Restaurant | Delivery” (59 characters).

Search Engine Optimization of Meta Descriptions

The Meta Description cannot be seen on your website or in your browser window.  It’s part of your website code that your web person added.  Here’s what one looks like:

<meta name=”description” content=”Local Google Advertising. Easy, Effective, Affordable. Local Pay per Click (PPC) for local businesses. Google AdWords service at affordable prices.” />

To see your Meta Description, right click in an open area of your website’s home page, then click on “View Source” to see the html code for your home page.  If you don’t see a line in the code that starts with “<meta name=”description” content=”, then you may not have a meta description on your home page.
To optimize your Meta Description, simply make the first few words the same as your Title Tag.  Meta Descriptions should be less than 150 characters, but they can be a little longer.  Do not repeat words too many times, or again, Google will think you are spamming.  Remember this is the copy that a potential customer will read on Google’s search results page.  Make sure it is written in complete sentences and is free of misspellings.  Not only do you want people to see your search result, but you also want them to click on it.  This is somewhat of an art form. You need to create compelling copy that sells to help drive more traffic to your website, but also maximize the keyword usage.  For the pizza restaurant  example, a Meta Description would be something like:

Pizza restaurant in Anytown, VA. Enjoy our Italian restaurant favorites like pizza, spaghetti, lasagna and more. Pizza delivery and carry out available. (152 characters).

Next time, I’ll talk about more about Header Tags, Alt Tags, images, copy and other ways to optimize your own website for the search engines.  In the meantime, if you think you need help with selecting your ideal keyword phrase, check out our $900 Google Trial with a Free SEO Suggestion Report.
I hope this helps.