Benefits of listing your Business on Google Places and How to go about it.

Google Places

Google Places is a straightforward service from Google to help small business make themselves visible and searchable on the internet,
by people from a particular locality they cater to. Google Places is free and allows businesses to put themselves on the web with little effort, which makes the service and excellent marketing option for small business owners.

Google Places is the local Yellow Pages – With the internet at hand, there are very few people who still search for a service using the traditional Yellow Pages directories. So besides being listed in the traditional Yellow Pages, businesses should also consider getting listed in online directories and in Google Places, especially if the business caters to a local audience. The advantage of using Google Places is that all the relevant information about your business is available and can be accessed by your potential customers through the internet, even when you don’t have a website. So if you are a small business owner and cannot afford maintaining a website, Google Places is the viable solution for you.
Improved search engine page ranking – Google Places focuses on local searches, which means that the competition for a local business o Google Places would be restricted to the other business only within the locality and not the entire region, city or state. This means that there are better chances of your business being at the top of the search engine page results for your category and location.

Your business is easily found on Google Maps – Another advantage of getting listed in Google Places is that your business would also be marked in Google Maps, giving the exact location of your business to a potential customer.

Cost-effective local marketing – Spending huge amounts of money on billboards, television, radio or print ads is not a practical option for small businesses. Google Places on the other hand allows small businesses to advertise to their potential customers in a given locality and costs much lesser than traditional advertising options.

How do I go about it?

• Go to Google My Business. Click “Get on Google”
• Enter Your Business Name and Address in the Search Box.
• Select or Add Your Business. Click on your business listing if it appears among the suggested matches. ...
• Verify Your Business. ...
• Confirm your Business.