Google Local Business Listings: “The free way to attract more customers.”

My boss got a letter in the mail from Google in reference to their Google Maps. It seems that Google is pushing their Google Maps marketing efforts with direct mailers in hopes of raising awareness of this service that can possible help businesses attract more local customers online.

As stated by Google, a Google Local Listing is, “The free way to attract more customers.” In other words it’s a good way for small businesses to do marketing in their local areas.

According to the letter, “Every day, more people are using Google Maps—and not just to look up an address or traffic.” If people are really using Google Maps to choose places to eat, shop or stay, as Google would like us to believe, then having your company listed can really prove to be beneficial.

Maps often appear at the top of organic search results displaying local listings in your areas. I, for one, look at these all the time, mostly when looking up phone numbers, but at times I also use it to reference different providers of the same service/products.

Google Local Listings is extremely simplified for businesses to use, and has a variety of tools to help bring more traffic to your website, or foot traffic in your store. They even give you a little snippet of Google Analytics, by allowing you to see statistics based on the traffic related to your Google Listing.

On their LinkedIn Group profile they give the following definition of what Google Local Listing:

Google Local Listings is a hot new source of REAL organic Google traffic for business owners. We’re optimizing such listings for increases in organic Google traffic – we’ve seen increases of up to 100% in Google organic traffic! Please feel free to share your experience or ask a question.

For those that didn’t receive the letter and want to take advantage of this opportunity, here is what you do:

1. Go to google.com/localbusinesscenter. Click “sign up now” to create a Google account, or use your existing Google account to log in.
2. Follow the instructions to verify that you are the business owner. If you have another business location, you can add that too.
3. Keep your hours, website and other details up to date. Stand out with photos, video, even coupons—all for free.
4. Use your personalized business dashboard to check how many visits your listing is getting, which zip codes people are coming from to reach your door, and more.

For more information, here is a video created by Google that gives you a better insight of what Google Local Business Listings does:

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