Business Profit Leaks – #4: Not Claiming, Verifying and Optimizing Your Google+ Local Listing

Google offers a place to list your business where local consumers can easily find you; it’s called Google+ Local. In order to utilize this tool, you must first add this feature or claim it as part of your Google account.

This is free advertising, yours for a few minutes of your time. Once you have claimed it, be sure to verify and optimize your listing. Google+ Local is so easy to use that not claiming it is like turning your back on the opportunity to place a billboard in the middle of the town square; major profit leak here.

Google+ Local offers mapping as part of their web page format. This helps your prospects and customers find their way to your store’s physical location with a clear road map that is available for download right from the web.

In the process of claiming and verifying your Google+ Local listing, you can start optimizing it to achieve high search engine rankings. This process starts with making your Google+ Local listing as complete as possible – filling out as many fields as you can.

There’s also a way to incorporate keywords into your Google+ Local listings that will help optimize it. It’s also important that you add the maximum number of videos and images to make your listing complete.

Once you complete everything and submit it to Google, they will give you an activation PIN code that you will use to activate your listing. In South Africa, this is usually by means of a phone call.

Not using Google+ Local is a major profit leak in your business, because the Google+ Local listings are shown prominently for most local searches, and link directly to Google Maps. In other words, if someone looks for a restaurant using the Google Maps app on their smart phone, the first restaurant in the Google+ Local listings for the area will usually show up.

If your business is absent, you are missing out on a TON of potential new business.