5 Ways to Use Mobile Marketing Part 4: Google Places

You've established your business. You have a name, location, and product or service, now what? What you need to do is put yourself on the map... literally!

Google Places is a program which brings customers and their local businesses together through common Google searches. Although this program is not directly associated with mobile devices as the previous posts have been, having your business listed on Google Places allows for you to be found by a variety of mobile applications which will help with your company's visibility and marketing. Simply put, creating a business listing for your business through Google Places personalizes the information that comes up when people Google your business.

Without personalization, business listings on Google use information from sources like Yellow Pages. By verifying your business and creating a listing, Google gives you the opportunity to share more information with customers than basic third party information. You can enhance your business page by adding a description, pictures, hours of operation, reviews, coupons, and real time updates on weekly specials. All the information added by you will take priority in Google searches.

One great feature of Google Places is that it has built in statistics that allow you to manage how your listing performs. This provides information on how many times your listing has been displayed in Google searches, the number of clicks that were made within your listing, searches that returned your business, locations used in searches, and view actions with no activity. It also summarizes activity from Google Maps Mobile, which is Google Maps for mobile devices. This allows you as a business to change and modify strategies based on your results.

Creating a listing on Google Places is completely FREE, however, there are a few general qualifications that your business needs to meet. The first qualification is that every business must have a mailing address. If you work from home or are a mobile business only, you can specify service areas and hide your physical address after signing up. Secondly, there can only be one listing per physical location; if you have multiple services, add these in the description of what you offer. And finally, only business owners or authorized representatives can create and verify listings. For a full list of guidelines click here.

There are three steps that must be completed to have your listing appear on Google:

1. Submit your information. Your business listing will include your business name, location, and other relevant information.
2. Verify your listing by phone, SMS, or postcard. A PIN will be sent to the address or telephone number provided to ensure the info is accurate and you have authority over the business.
3. Wait for your listing to appear on Google. Verification could take up to 2 weeks.

How to Add a New Listing

1. Go to Google Places
2. Sign in with your Google account. If you don't have one, sign up for one here.
3. Click "Add new business"
4. On the "Find your business" tab, search for your business by entering the country and phone number to see if Google already has information about your business.
5. Review the search results, if any, to see if one of them describes your business. If none of the results are related to your business, you will be prompted to add business information on the Edit Details page. If none of the results is your business, click "Add a new listing." You'll be prompted to add more information on the next page.
6. Fill out the basic information about your business.
7. Click "Next." You'll now have the opportunity to provide more information about your business including categories, hours of operation, payment options, photos, video, and additional details such as parking availability
8. When you are satisfied, click "Submit"
9. Choose how you would like to verify your submission and click "Finish"

How To Edit Service Areas

1. Log in to your account
2. On the "Edit Business Listing" page, click on the header "Service Areas and Location Settings."
3. Click the radio button 'Yes, this business serves customers at their locations in a specific area.'
4. After selecting "Yes," a gray box will appear with additional settings options. To your business address private, check the box next to 'Do not show my business address on my Maps listing.' Then, select the areas your business serves.
5. Designate service areas by distance or areas served. The "Distance from Location" option is best for users who are willing to travel a certain distance from a central location, e.g. 15 miles from Fullerton, CA. The "List of Areas Served" option is best for users who serve certain cities, zip codes or counties, e.g. 92831, Orange County, CA.

Once you establish your listing, customers can start reviewing and checking in to your location through their mobile device which will spread the word about your business!