Using Google Maps to Market your Business

Local Search, Google Maps and Business

For marketers and businesses, Google Maps is an extension of SEO. For businesses whose customer base is primarily local, Google Maps may be a more important source of traffic than traditional organic SEO or pay per click marketing.
Lawyers, doctors, hotels and restaurants are all examples of businesses that need a presence on Google Maps to stay competitive.
E-commerce companies, wholesalers, and warehouses usually do not need Google Maps to stay competitive

local search results

Google Maps and Universal Search
Google maps is an aspect of what is called “universal search”. Google maps attempts to identify businesses close in location to the searcher. If I need a lawyer and search for “lawyer” or I want a pizza and I search for “pizza”, it is likely that a business down the street will be much more relevant than a lawyer in New York or Ukraine.
For certain searches, local results are better.

How does Google know I want a Local Business?
There seems to be at least two conditions that need to be satisfied for Google Maps to be triggered:
1) The search phrase must contain a city name: e.g, San Diego Lawyer, Surgeon in Minneapolis, etc.
2) The search is for a business-related item. You can’t just search for “San Diego X” or “X San Diego”. X has to match a database of words. Lawyer, surgeon, pizza, hotels are all business-related, so Google-Maps triggers if you enter one of these phrases. “San Diego Rattlesnake” does not trigger Google Maps.

What Does This Have to do With My Business?
Submitting your business to Google Maps can help you gain visibility when people perform these “local searches”.

If people see you on Google Maps, they could clickthrough to your website and end up as customers. This has to be the easiest search optimization technique to use to help market your business. Obviously, the “trick” is to do it right.

You only get seen if you are in positions A-J (the top 10).

The Problem
Google has not resigned to the fact that Google maps is the domain of marketers.
As such, they have enforced very strict rules against attempts to optimize Google Maps. More than any other area of search marketing, it is better for you to be conservative- no keyword stuffing.

Conclusion
Submit a map, or hire someone to submit a Google Map for you. If you still desire more visibility, and wish to be aggressive in your marketing, look into altering your SEO and PPC efforts.

Top 10 ways to Generate Keywords in Pay-per-click

There is a process for finding ppc keywords. Here are the top methods that I use to find keywords. This is not a list on how to find good keywords (we’ll talk about that next time) it is simply a list on where to find keywords that are relevant to your brand.

The List

1) Common sense-This one is often overlooked. If a grocery store solicited my help I know a ton of their keywords because I have seen a grocery store.

2) Keyword tools- Google Adwords Keywords tool and Yahoo both have free keyword tools with real data from searches people have performed. There are also good paid alternatives.

3) Website analysis. Look at the content of the webpage. There are also tools that can extract that data. The navigation and breadcrumbs can be helpful.

4) Competitors- Look at the content of the webpage of the competition.

5) Yahoo’s search home page- do a couple “bad” searches and Yahoo will show a list of related searches. Those are keywords.

6) Analytics-In your analytics. You are running analytics right? It will send you the keyword people are searching for when then used a search engine to get to your site.

7) Internal search-what are people searching for on your site? Those are keywords.

8 Competitive intelligence reports-Companies like Compete.com sell information on you and your company that may be useful.

9) The company-I listen to the language the stakeholders and employees use in our correspondence. Also, it never hurts to ask them if they thought I missed anything, but that is always at the end of the keyword expansion phase and campaign building phase.

Perhaps a new product might come in or a new corporate trend might develop that is outside the scope of analytics.

10) My experience-I have built umpteen campaigns and I have a certain feel for it.

(You may only recreate portions of this list if you keep the text and links unchanged and attribute the list to RoseOspreyMarketing.com.)

SEO Tools: Using Web Directories

One “SEO tool” or technique that can help all business owners is the use of directory submissions.

One of the primary factors in most first-tier search engines’ algorithm is external links. You want links from other sites. Preferably one-way links, but reciprocal links have value also.

There are many web-directories on the internet- both broad and specific. In fact, before Yahoo was a search engine, it was (and is) a web directory. A web directory works on a business model similar to the Yellow Pages. You submit information to the directory, the directory hosts ads, advertisers pay money to the webmasters.

Some more “enterprising” webmasters have come up with a different business model to support their web directory. Everyone values incoming links to their site because of the SEO value. What would you pay to get a link to your site from the Google homepage? Obviously Google does not sell links, but you can imagine the value to your company.

A small web directory can provide a similar value on a much smaller scale.

However, there is a problem.

This practice of buying links is against Google’s terms of service and can get your site removed from the SERPS altogether.

Of course, it is not against Google’s policy to buy advertising on a site as long as you state that you are an advertiser. You can also buy “memberships” in organizations and “receive” links.

The practice is not as black and white as it appears. However, if your business is flagged by Google, and removed from the search engines, the results will be very black and white. It is best to err on the side of caution with your business.

Here are some examples of legitimate directories I have worked with. I will try to add to the list as I find more:

Web Directory List:

seo resources

dmoz.org

What is the difference between PPC, SEO and Paid Inclusion?

There is a big difference between natural or organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click (PPC), but many don’t know about it or don’t understand it.

Organic is “free” traffic, in a sense. Organic’s only cost is the  labor put in to optimizing your site. Pay-per-click traffic costs you labor plus the cost of a click. That is, you are charged each time someone clicks on your ad.

This shows the search results for a random term "topaz jewelry".

Key

• The red areas are pay per click.
• The purple area is organic search.
• The green area (shopping results) is referred to as “paid inclusion”; it is managed through Google Base. This is usually managed by a feed. It is fairly cost effective, but you have very little control over when and where your products are shown.