Put Your Business On The Map

The Google Local Business Center (LBC) allows you to put your business on the map, literally.

The LBC is a free tool that enables business owners to control the content of their business listing as it appears in Google Search and Google Maps.

When someone searches for your type of business along with a geographic tag, your business information can appear at the top of Google Maps or the Google Search page. The image above is what appears first when searching for e-marketing in Eden Prairie.

If you run a brick-and-mortar business or even if you have a mailing address and phone number for your virtual business, you should get started by claiming a new listing, or optimizing your existing business listing on the Local Business Center page. As usage of Google Maps increases on the desktop and on mobile devices it is important that you are listed and that the information describing your business is accurate.

On June 2 Google rolled out a new dashboard feature in the Local Business Center. Once you claim your listing in the LBC and go through a quick verification process you will gain access to the following kinds of data:

• Impressions: The number of times the business listing appeared as a result on a Google.com search or Google Maps search in a given period.
• Actions: The number of times people interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times they clicked through to the business' website or requested driving directions to the business.
• Top search queries: Which queries led customers to the business listing; for example, are they finding the listing for a cafe by searching for "tea" or "coffee"?
• ZIP codes where driving directions come from: Which ZIP codes customers are coming from when they request directions to your location.

The new dashboard will also let you dig into that data using all kinds of lists, maps, and graphs much as you can in Google Analytics for your Web traffic data. To learn more about accessing and using the dashboard, take a look at the video found on the Google Lat Long Blog.

Contact me for help with your local or national online marketing.