These days more people search for businesses online than anywhere else so it’s important to make sure that your prospects can find your business. In fact, research shows that 97 per cent of people do their research online before making their buying decision.
Listing your business with Google Places is a great way to connect with your customers. Google Places is a new location-based advertising system for businesses which would like to connect to their local prospects. This allows creating online ads easily and directly from a Google account. Once an ad has been set up, there is no ongoing management required. This solution is increasingly part of today’s multi-channel search marketing environment.
Take control of your Google Map listing
When potential customers search Google Maps for local information, Google Places allows them to find your business along with your address, hours of operation, even photos of your storefront or products. You can make your listing shine with logos and videos, customer categories like service area, brands you sell, hints to find parking and printable and mobile coupons to encourage customers to make the first or repeat purchase.
The flexibility of Google Places allows you to edit your information at any time and also include frequent updates or messages like special sale, new product launch or some seasonal availability. Google Places work great for businesses of any size, whether it is a single dentist’s office or business with multiple store locations.
Reach the mobile consumer
Moreover, as per new studies, searches are moving from office desktops to smart phones like iPhone, Android, Blackberry etc. Most of time people use mobile search to look for local business and services like the nearest restaurant, bank or a store. By optimizing your website for Google Places can help you promote your business not just for web but also for mobile searches.
Google Places can help you to get your website on the first page of Google, most of the time at top of the page just below the sponsored links. It is an opportunity to get on the top in natural listings. In addition to that the results from these listings are easily measurable. Google Places automatically delivers a wide range of data like targeted search terms, impressions, actions etc.
Google Places is a great tool that can integrate into your multi-channel SEM plan. It can provide one spot for all various points of contact available to engage the prospects. It’s a great option for the businesses to show their physical locations on map along with their website. This approach significantly increases the online marketing exposure along with more conversions. Listing on Google Places is a complementary gift with all existing search marketing channels.
