Google Places Help For Manchester Businesses

Check If Your Business is Listed

To check if there is an existing listing for your Manchester based business go to maps.google.co.uk and type your business name and address in the search bar to find out if your business is listed.

Adding A New Business

If you don't find your business you will have to create a new listing by going to google.co.uk/places.

Get a new Google gmail address and use this as your email when creating a new account. Create a Gmail using your business name or main keyword - "YourBusinessName@gmail.com" or "YourMain Keyword@gmail.com". You can use this for maintaining your Google Places account, creating citations and getting access to Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics.

Once you've created your account complete your listing as detailed below.

Existing Business

If you find more than one listing it is important that you delete the ones with the least amount of business data. You do not want to have duplicate listings as Google can regard this as spamming.I

f you find that your listing has been claimed by someone else, possibly a competitor, then report it to Google.

If your business is listed click on the title and you will be taken to the Places page. In the top right you will see 'Edit this place - Business owner? Click on this link and you will be asked to sign in to Google and then be taken to the listing page where you can edit the details.

As it stands your listing will be completed with information that Google thinks it has about you plus other details it has aggregated from other online directories and review websites. Don't worry if this information is inaccurate because you are going to update your listing with correct and quality content.

Googles priority is in providing the most up to date and relevant content and if you can complete all the sections with quality information whilst staying within its guidelines you have an excellent chance of your Google Places page ranking highly for your keywords.

Complete the basic information - company name, address, post code, telephone numbers, email and website address. Match the information exactly as it stands on your website. Only enter your exact business name, DON'T attempt to stuff your title with keywords or location references if they aren't part of your official business name.

You have 200 characters in which to provide a description of your business and this is a great place to mention your keyword/s and location. Work in 1-2 keywords in a meaningful way as it has to read correctly to a potential customer.

Google gave some guidance in 2011 on completing the description field:

"As a business owner, we encourage you to add a specific description of your business in the "description" field. This gives potential clients more information to understand what your business is about and see if your business matches what they are seeking. You can also use this field to provide further guidance about the location of your business which might be useful in some cases where it is hard to find e.g. if the entrance is only accessible via the rear.

Keep the description clear and concise, so it is helpful to users and catches their attention. A series of repeated keywords or categories may turn off potential customers, but a crisp and catchy summary of the services you offer can help users determine if your business is right for them."

Your description should provide information that demonstrates authority, longevity, credibility, including warranties, guarantees and a call to action statement if possible.

You can choose 5 categories for your business, one of which has to match a default category that appears as you type. Choose your categories wisely and create custom categories in addition to the ones provided. They should be closely related to the products or services you offer. DON'T stuff keywords into an individual category section using commas and don't use geographic locations (i.e. Plumber manchester). Each category should say what your business is (i.e. Hospital) not what it does (i.e. Vaccinations) or what it sells. This type of information ca be added in the description or custom attributes section.

Complete your hours of operation and payment methods that you accept.

In the photos section you should add all of the 10 images that you are allowed. Take the first 2 images and tag them with the name of your first category and so on. Also, add a geo-tag to each image for the location that you are targeting.

You are allowed 5 videos and again you should provide all 5 with each one having a title matching a category. You should also geo-tag your videos as well.

Adding all 10 photos and 5 videos can be what separates you from the competition plus it is providing potential customers with as much information about your business as possible.

The additional details section can be used to add inteligent, keyword/location rich phrases about the services, products, areas served and other details about your business.

Create coupons for your Places page. They help to improve your Place page conversion rate but it also gives you another chance to provide Google with an optimised phrase or two using your keywords.

As you add information to each section you can see what it looks like on the right hand side of the page. Google also tells you as a percentage how much information you have provided. You need to aim for 100% completion.

When you have completed all the sections click submit.

Before your Places page will go live you have to verify your listing. Google will send a postcard to your address with a PIN number on it. When you receive it log-in to your Places account and verify the PIN.

Once your Places page is up and running there are a few things you must do:

1) Build links to your Place page.
2) Get customer reviews.
3) List your business on local directories using the exact same information that you have used on your Places page.

Be sure to check out the Google Places help pages. You will find a wealth of information there including information about hijacked profiles, verification options and the Google Places Users Guide.