Using Google Local, formally know as “Google Places,” improves your visibility on the Internet. Often, when building a firm's online reputation, many professionals lose track of a simple reality: most companies have physical locations and their clients or customers are from a specific geographical location. Seems simple and logical enough, but many spend thousands optimizing their sites, using every keyword they can imagine, designing fancy logos, and forget one of the simplest ways to boost your visibility on Google: using Google Local.
What is Google Local?
Have you ever searched for a business and had not just a list of regular search terms appear, but also a little box to the right with a map and information about the business? That was a Google Local search result. Did you notice how immediately useful it was? It made that company look important enough to have their own separate content area on Google, gave most of the information you were probably looking for (location, hours, parking, customer reviews, etc.), and included a picture of the business and/or their logo. Pretty impressive, right? So, you are probably thinking that it must cost a fortune to do that.
Surprisingly, it does not cost anything. The feature is offered for free by Google and accessible from your Google+ account. While there are a few hoops to jump through in order to finalize the process and keep your Google Local account result looking the way you want, it is easily one of the best and cheapest things you can do to give your company an instant boost in visibility.
Does Google Local Affect SEO?
Yes, in a manner of speaking. While Google Local is not a feature related to anything on your website (so therefore, it has nothing to do with optimizing your site to rank higher in search results), a good Google Local profile will include your web address. This will allow Google to cross-reference the Google Local information against the content on your site, and when anyone searches for something related to your area of practice, suddenly you become a much more relevant search result for anyone in your general vicinity. Additionally, the connection to Google+ is a plus for you search engine optimization.
For example, say you live in Orlando, Florida, and you want to find an entertainment attorney. So, you put in a query of “entertainment attorney” and Google identifies the location from which the query is being made (somewhere in the Orlando area). Its sophisticated search algorithms then determine that you probably will be most interested in finding information about an entertainment attorney that is somewhere close to Orlando and spits out results for pages of attorneys who do entertainment law in that area.
But, if one or more of those attorneys have a Google Local account, they will likely rank higher in the organic results because their geographical location is verified in Google, they have offsite content relevant both to the search query and the location that points back to the site (i.e., the Google Local account information), and in many instances the firm will appear either in a short list next to a map of local firms that practice entertainment law, or in a few instances, could appear on its own with a full Google Local profile on the right side of the results.
What Do You Have to Do to Sign Up?
Google Local is not too complicated to set up. All you have to do is visit your Google+ account and click on “Local” in the dropdown list on the left and follow the prompts for information. You will want to have details like your parking arrangements, hours of operation, photos of your business and your logos available before you begin in order to speed up the sign up process.
Once completed, you will have to wait a few days while Google mails you a card with a unique code to verify that you are, in fact, at the address you specified. This keeps others from pretending to be your company in order to harm your search results or tamper with your company's online appearance. Once you receive the card, you simply verify the code and your Google Local account should become active.
