I recently blogged about the fact that it is now possible to use a spreadsheet to create a Google Local listing for multiple locations of your business.
In this blog, I am going to give a step by step guide on how to submit a single location to Google Local.
When I start making a Google Local Submission, I first go to Google Maps (or the US Version if you are doing a submission there).
Above I have highlighted the location where you can begin making a submission for Google Local. Once you have clicked on this you have to sign in with an existing Google account (such as you might already use if you write a blog on blogger, or if you use Google Analytics or their Webmaster Tools), or create a new account for this purpose.
I will assume you already have a sign in, or will return to this point once you have created a log-in. Once you have signed in, at the top of the screen, you will be greeted with 2 options.
Option 1 will lead you to create a single submission, and option 2 will give you details on how to use a spreadsheet to submit multiple locations (over 10) at the same time, with the same feed. On this occasion, we will select option 1 and begin submitting our location to Google.
On this page, you begin filling in the initial information about your company, the name of the business and the address.
For the next stage there are a few more areas to look at. Make sure you look at the map, and make sure that the pointer looks like it is in the correct location. Many of the fields here are optional, but it can be useful to fill them in. Certainly if you have a website, you want to ensure that it is listed here, and as with all descriptions, you want something that compells your potential audience to come onto your website.
One area that I always fill in when doing these submissions for clients is at the bottom of the form "contact name". This does not appear on the listing when it appears on Google, but it does get written on the postcard that Google send to the location you are submitting, so its useful to put down your name here to ensure that it doesn’t look like junk mail getting thrown away in the process.
You then have to choose categories for your business. You can search:
Or you can choose categories by browsing them if your search turns up no results:
There will then be a page where you can specify custom attributes, but this will vary from field to field. The most important custom attribute that seems to be across all fields is "Areas Served", which it is vital to fill in with the areas that you want to be found in when people are searching locally. There is also the option after this stage to upload images to use with your submission.
Before you complete the process, you get an opportunity to preview how your listing will eventually appear:
Once you are happy with your preview, press continue and you are done!
You will be greeted with a screen explaining it will take about 2 weeks for your Google Postcard to arrive, and showing you the contact details that your Google postcard will be sent to.
Once the postcard arrives, go back to the Google Local Business Center and in the correct field enter the pin number that they have put in the postcard and before long your business will be jumping ahead of the search results if the query is right for your business. You can monitor how many times your listing appears in the business center.
We do this for our clients that have business’s appropriate for submission, and are looking into the viability of launching a Local Optimisation Service for a business that does not serve a large area but could still benefit from some form of Search Engine Optimisation, of which this will be a small section. Keep watching the Vertical Leap website for future developments. Even if you dont have a website, it can be useful to create a listing for Google Local.
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