Google Places SEO & Ranking-The King of Small Business SEO?

Google Places is a mashup of 2 algorithm's, Places and Maps. One is a geo specific algorithm and one is a quality/relevancy/content algorithm that also scrapes from various third party sites like insider pages, yellowbot, citysearch, and yahoo among many others. Remember we're working with computers and algorithm's here folks! If you have different information like addresses, phone numbers, and business names that do not match up across multiple sources the algorithm gets confused, listings get merged, and rankings get devalued. Unfortunately barring an act of God you will never get to talk with a Google employee or Places technician to fix, discuss, or "explain" what is already out there on the internet so you must do your best to do it right the first time and keep things uniform or hire a small business SEO that has extensive experience in ranking Places listings to first analyze your current visibility online and consistency according to Google's data about your business. Here are a few questions and concerns to consider before ever starting your listing:

1. Do you have your business name, address, and phone number posted on the main page of your website?
2. Have you listed your business across other local business directories online and does the data from those listings match up with your current main website data (data from the URL you will post on your Google Places page)?
3. Can you find your location in Google Maps and is the pin in the correct position?
4. Do you have a current listing within Places that Google has already scraped? Does the data match up?
5 Do you have multiple businesses at the same address? If so are they showing up within Google Places and how are they categorized?
6. Do you have a PO box or a street address? Google does not like PO boxes from past spammers!
7. Do you have a local number or 800 number? Google Places favors local numbers over 800 numbers.
8. Is your address within 15 miles of the city you want to rank in? If you don't have an address yet I strongly suggest to get an address in the closest major metro area if possible!

Do you think I'm being too strict? Do you not believe Google can be this accurate while being totally inaccurate at the same time? Try having inconsistent data all over the web and see what happens to your places listing:-)

Have you ever heard the analogy that goes something like, "If a searcher cannot find your $20,000 website, it's like a billboard in the desert"? Organic website SEO and Google Places SEO are very similar in the fact that just because you have a beautiful website and/or listing does NOT mean your customers will find you! With traditional organic website SEO and promotion your foundation is based primarily on a few on page factors especially with the Google Caffeine algorithm:

1. Meta Data. Title, description, and keywords relevant per page.
2. Multimedia
3. Load time
4. Coding
5. Image optimization
6. SEO optimized content with proper keyword density

Of course there are many other factors but if you have the following in place with of course some stellar keyword research you are off to a good start.

Google Places is very similar in that it needs a proper foundation to add to with off listing promotion in competitive niches and markets. Think of it this way pertaining to a Google Places listing:

1. Meta Data= Business name, description, and categories
2. Multimedia= Images and Video
3. Content=Relevant 3rd party content like reviews, citations, and mentions that match up from other properties

Now the list may not be as long but it is very similar in the fact that a proper foundation must be built for success and accuracy. Think of 3rd party content like links to your Places listing. The more citations, third party reviews, and relevant content attached to your Places listing the more "votes" to the popularity and relevance of the listing. However, without a proper foundation and accurate information across many properties to start you will be off to a difficult start.

When I first begin work with a new client they have many questions on different forms and methods of SEO and which to start with and which are most effective. This is all relevant to the niche or type of business, the competition, and the city their business is located in. It's much easier to rank a local website for surrounding cities than it is to rank a Places listing for multiple cities. Each has it's own thresholds. For my larger franchise clients and clients with multiple locations that have experienced the effectiveness of a fully optimized and ranking Google Places listing the answer is simple. Google Places first, main website ranking and optimization second. This is for the following reasons:

1. They've seen the incredible difference proper Google Places SEO has done for their bottom line
2. It's easy for a business owner who doesn't necessarily understand the finer details of SEO to just log in to their account and see their statistics and measure their bottom line with impressions, clicks, and search terms used to find their listings.
3. They know it's the first thing the searcher see's when certain keyword terms are typed into the Google search bar which are typically their main "money" keyword terms anyways.

The bonus of proper small business SEO for your main website is to further qualify the searcher and supplement the search terms that do not show in Google Places. Google Places also allows you the unique opportunity to gain at least a 20% market share of the first page! Think about these statistics:

1. Searchers are 8X more likely to click an organic listing vs. paid
2. 90% of all searchers do not go past the first page when looking for a product or service.
3. About 75% of all searchers only click through to the top 3 results

What does this all mean? The greater the market share whether in the organics or Google Places in the top positions on the first page the more trust, popularity, and opportunity to prove to the searcher that you are the best choice for what they are looking for.