4 Google+ Action Items For Small Businesses

Today we’re going to give you 4 simple tips that can bring your businesses Google+ Local page from no visibility to fully optimized with the potential to rank for competitive keywords that will bring your business new customers. These tips will take you no more than a few hours to implement and will immensely improve your presence on Google+ Local – let’s hop right into it!

1. Google+ Verification

Before doing any work we’ll want to make sure you’re signed into a Google account. After you’ve signed in, head to Google Maps and do a quick search for your business name or address. When you find your listing on the map, click on the location pin and select “More Info”. It’s now time to take “ownership” of your page which will allow you to make changes as well as get great analytics on your page. Click on the “Manage this page” button found on the right sidebar of your page. From here we’ll want to validate the listing by phone. This entire process should take no more than 5 minutes!

2. Google+ Local Optimization

Now it’s time to actually make some adjustments and optimizations to your G+ Local page. Here are a few things you’ll want to do:

– Ensure all of your information is correct (Hours, payment methods accepted, website, etc.)
– Provide 5 categories for your business. This is important! Make sure you utilize all 5 possible categories!
– Write a two sentence (200 characters max) description for your business. Include keywords – and mentions of your categories as well
– Upload 3-5 photos that represent your business. Pictures of your entrance, food, or people working are great for this!
– If you have a YouTube video, be sure to add it as well. This helps a lot!
– Ask one friend (who you’ve done business with) to leave you one G+ Local review

Congratulations, your Google+ Local page is now optimized! But we’re not done yet. It’s time to move onto website optimization! You do have a website, right?

3. Website Optimization

Just because we’re optimizing for Google+ Local doesn’t mean we get to ignore website optimization. It’s still extremely important to make sure that our G+ Local optimization and website optimization complement each other for an efficient local SEO campaign. Here are a few tips to bring your website up to par:

– Update your home page <title> tag in the following format: Location + Keyword – Name of Business. An example would be “Brooklyn, NY Italian Restaurant – Matt’s Bistro”
– Update your home page <h1> tag in the following format: Name of Business – Keyword in Location. Another example here would be “Matt’s Bistro – Italian Restaurant in Brooklyn, NY”
– Add your name, address & phone number as it appears on your G+ Local page to every page on your website. You can add this in the footer or sidebar

4. Local Directory Submission

A critical component of local SEO is your presence in top local directories like Yelp & City Search. If you want to get found on Google+ Local, you’ll need to have a significant presence on the smaller directories as well. This is the most time consuming step in optimizing your businesses local online presence. What we’ll want to do here is sign up for each of the local directories mentioned below & add your business using the same information we used on the Google+ Local profile. (name, address, phone number, website need to be identical!)

  Yelp – Citysearch – FourSquare – Local.com – MerchantCircle

Like we mentioned earlier, when signing up for these websites and submitting your business, we want to make sure the information is taken directly from Google+ Local. When adding your business, filling out videos, pictures, and social media links will greatly help your local SEO presence.

That’s all, folks! If you follow these 4 simple tips, you’ll be ahead of your local SEO competitors. Please feel free to ask any questions or for further clarification in the comments, I would love to help you out in any way possible.