Here is why you cannot afford to ignore the power of Google Places!


Finding a business, a restaurant, a grocery shop or any other business in a locality has become a cake walk now. Thanks to Google places search facility that lists out all the available services as per their geographic location. It is a well known fact that most of the searches are related to a specific location. This is the aspect on which Google places focuses on and businessmen are using it to their advantage.

Google Places is a service provided by Google that allows businesses to get listed on Google maps. This makes it easier for their customers to locate them in a given locality. In other words, when a shopper is looking for a business in a specific locality, an organic listing of all the available services appear. Therefore, listing yourself in Google Places is the most important part of internet marketing that can help you achieve brand awareness for your business. So, if you are running a business and are not using this service, it’s high time that you need to consider opting for it to get that edge over you competitors in your area.

How to get started?

So you want your business to be listed in Google Places? Well! It is a super easy process that requires you to go through three simple steps. First step requires you to get registered with the service by opening an account and submitting the relevant information regarding your business. The relevant information features your address, phone number, email id, mode of service, working hours, images of your store, videos etc. The second step is to get your listing verified through phone or email and receive a PIN from Google. Lastly, use this PIN to claim your specified listing. As you are through with all the three steps, your listing will be accepted and can be seen on the website. The cherry on the cake is the fact the Google places is a free service and the onus is on you to utilize this facility to your advantage.

A boon for small businesses

Since Google Places has the ability to empower small businesses by making them visible and searchable on the internet with little effort. This way the people from a particular locality they cater to, can easily learn and find about their business. This property has made this service quite popular and an excellent marketing option for small business owners.

Google Maps can also be accessed via any Smartphone. With the increased usage of smartphones, it has been observed that location based searches are predominant in the search results. People can use Google Places service round the clock, thereby increasing the probability of you finding potential customers for your business.

Google Places is actually another form of local Yellow Pages

Yellow pages have almost become a thing of the past these days. With smartphones in hand, Google is now seen as an encyclopedia on the go! People use their smartphones to access internet and fetch any information they are looking for. Therefore, it is mandatory for the businesses to be listed in the online directories and Google places besides being listed in the traditional Yellow Pages, if they want to grab the attention of the local audience. Your potential customers can get all the relevant information on Google Places even if you cannot afford to build and maintain a website.

Gives your search ranking an immediate upswing

Since Google Places is based on local searches, a small business has to compete with other business only within the locality and not the entire region, city or state. This offers a great opportunity for a small business to appear in one of the top positions in search results in its category and location. Higher ranking facilitates more visits to your website or on your real store for your business. For example, a search for “Thai spas in New York City” would fetch results for all the Thai spas located in New York City. This way, if you own a Thai Spa in New York City, the chances of appearance of your business would be quite high in Google Places.

Locating your business on Google Maps would be much easier

The beauty of Google Places is the fact that as you register with it, the exact location of your business will be marked in Google Maps. This makes it extremely easier for your potential customer to find your business without any hassle. All you have to do is to allow your business listing to be found through relevant keywords used in Google Maps. This will also work for all the mobile devices enabling customers who can find and locate your business even on the go.

After all it is free

if you are still not sure about using Google services, think like this, “Hey! There is nothing wrong with trying out something that is free!” A small business always has some financial limitations when it comes to marketing. Shelling out large sum of money to spend on television, radio and billboards marketing doesn’t sound practical for small or new businesses. Google Places can easily come to rescue as it can aid to quick social media marketing and all this for free. It has a wider reach and anybody from any place on earth can easily know the details and whereabouts of any business in a particular locality if it is listed in Google Places.

#Google maps, #Local listing, #Google places, #Google Maps street view