In my last post I gave an introduction to Google’s Local Business Center and maps listings. This is going to be about how to create, add or claim your local business listing to make you more visible and searchable on Google.
A Google Local Business Listing Search & Results Example
The following is a live video recording of a Google search for “plumber benicia ca” to demo Google’s local business listings:
Tutorial – Add & Claim Your Local Business Listing
The following video will walk you through the steps to create a free Google account and create your local business listing. You may want to download the PDF slides: How to Create a Google Local Business Listing to use as your guide when doing this yourself.
Additional Resources
In addition to the video tutorial and accompanying slides which make up the bulk of this tutorial, there’s some supplemental resources I’ve either referenced or found in my research that are helpful to peruse. These will give you a deeper understanding of local business listings, how Google’s Local Business Center works, and most importantly, how to optimize your listing to reach its full potential:
- Business Listing Quality Guidelines
- Local Business Center User Guide
- Google help topic: Ranking of Listings
- Google’s announcement (6/2/09): Local Business Center Dashboard Opens its Doors
- Google blog article (4/6/09): Google Becomes More Local
- Zephyr Marketing YouTube Video: Introduction to Google’s Local Business Listings
- Zephyr Marketing accompanying PDF slides to above intro video
- Google’s YouTube Video: Google’s Local Business Center Introduction
- Google’s You Tube Instructional Video: Local Business Center for Google Maps
- Verdan Tomic’s post on Small Business Trends: 10 Things You Should Have Done to Make Your Google Business Listing Great
Once you get your listing claimed and enhanced on Google don’t forget the other major engines. Yahoo and Bing also have local business listing resources:
- Yahoo Local: http://local.yahoo.com
- Bing Local: http://www.bing.com/local
I hope you’ve found this helpful to create a new or enhance an existing local business listing. Please share any comments. My next post on this topic will be on how to get the most out of your listing by promoting it with the review feature to your customers.
