GOOGLE MAPS SEO How to Boost Places and Local Listings!

Google Places SEO – Los Angeles Marketing Agency Gives Away Bing and Google Maps Secrets!

We are going to give you the top 20 Do’s and Don’ts of Google Maps SEO ranking factors. Also, in this article I am going to show you how re-enforcing your Google Local Listings with a GEO site map & a KML file can cause a great increase in your SEO results.

Google Maps SEO

At World Class Media – We specialize in Google Maps SEO and improving Traffic and revenue through ideal local marketing.

A major survey was done of top SEO companies (and our own experience has shown these top 10 factors to be fairly accurate):

Participants were invited to rank 90 possible positive Ranking Factors and 18 possible negative Ranking Factors that drive Google’s Maps SEO Search algorithms:

Google Maps SEO Best Practices:

• 1. Correct Category Associations With Your Business. Select categories carefully. All of your categories should be relevant to your product.
• 2. Physical Address in City Being Searched. Ideally you should be in the same city as the people who are searching for your business.
• 3. Number of Matching Address and Phone Numbers on The Web. How can Google Tell You Are a Real Business? Simple, count all matching address listings.
• 4. Quality and Authority of Matching Addresses. The more trusted sites who talk about your address and phone number the better.
• 5. Matching Address on Your Website. Google will look at the website address and phone you use and see if it matches your listing.
• 6. The Rank of Your Website. Your Website should have some rank too. How long has your website been up? The rank of the site you use should be high.
• 7. Quality of Links Talking about Your Site. Google gives a page rank (from 1-10 on every site that talks about you) quality over quantity.
• 8. Owner-Verified Google Local/Google Plus Page. Have You verified Your Google Plus Local Listing?
• 9. Add Your City, State in Places Landing Page Title. It is wide to state the cities and states in the title.
• 10. Closeness to Google’s City Marker. Type the city’s name – Google assigns a default location to the city – the closer you are to that, the better.
• 11. How Many Reviews You Have. The number of reviews is also a very important factor in making you rank high.
• 12. Number of Google (Specific) Reviews you Have. Focus on getting reviews on Google itself, it seems they are more important.
• 13. Products and Services Keywords in Business Title. Add a couple of key Search terms (like 2) in your title, but don’t stuff it.
• 14. Number of Links from Locally Relevant Sites. Focus on getting reviews and links to your local listing from local places in the city.
• 15. Closeness to The Searcher. How close are you to the person Searching?
• 16. Number of Links from Industry-Relevant Sites. Google looks at how relevant your links are to the Category you chose.
• 17. Local Area Code on Local Plus Page. Does your area code match the location you entered in?
• 18. “City, State” in Most of Your Website Title Tags. Consider adding your City and State to the Website’s Title’s on each page.
• 19. Number of Third-party Reviews. How many reviews on other sites, like Yelp, YP.com and other traditional sites?
• 20. Add a Google Earth KML File and GEO Sitemap Notations You should add a KML file to attract the niche of Google Earth users.

Negative Google Maps SEO Factors

• 1. Listing Found to be False. Reported or found by Google itself.
• 2. Keyword Stuffing in Business Name. If you are going to add keywords, use one.
• 3. Don’t Use 5 Categories, use Three at the Most. Just like stuffing your name – don’t stuff the categories use less.
• 4. Incorrect Business Category. Consider adding one business category instead of five.
• 5. Multiple Place Pages with Same/Similar Business Title and Address. Don’t add more than one at that address.
• 6. Mismatch of Address/numbers on the Landing Page. On the website you address, don’t use a different phone number.
• 7. Mismatch Name and Phone Across the Web How many other locations and phone numbers with that address?
• 8. Report of Violation on Your Place Page. Try not to do anything that would trigger someone reporting you.
• 9. Viruses, Malware or Hacking on the Website. Google can tell if there is some kind of malware or virus or hack on your site.
• 10. Name and Phone Number Can’t be Found (in an Image). Don’t hide your address and phone number in an image.
• 11. Don’t use The Same Phone Number in Multiple Listings. Don’t use your number in more than one listing, just get more numbers.
• 12. Including Location Keyword in Categories. Don’t place the City Keyword in your categories.
• 13. No Name and Phone Number on the Landing Page. Make sure the name and phone number can be seen by Google and read.
• 14. Incorrectly Placing Your Map Marker. Don’t place Your Map Marker in the wrong spot.
• 15. Presence of Multiple Categories in Same Input Field. Keep your fields clean and concise – don’t stuff any fields.
• 16. Association of Google Places Account with other Suppressed Listings. Any bad history? Make a fresh Google account.
• 17. Address Includes Suite Number Similar to UPS Mail Store addresses. They caught onto this one, don’t use a PO Box.
• 18. Keyword or City stuffed Place Page Descriptions. Consider yourself a large Brand – they wouldn’t tolerate stuffed fields.
• 19. Irrelevant Categories (Make Sure Your Categories are Accurate). Keep your categories as concise as possible.
• 20. Only Listing an 800 Number on Your Google Places Page. It’s okay to an 800 number, but add additional numbers too (ideally in the area code of the business) – Use alternate phone numbers, not just 800 numbers on your page.

Google Maps SEO – What’s a KML File?

What is a KML File? KML Stands for Keyhole Markup Language. An XML based file that expresses geographic annotation and visualization for earth viewing software such as Google Earth. GEO Sitemaps are sitemaps that Google Uses to determine all of the locations of your business.

Boost Your Google Places SEO with Maps, GEO Sitemaps and KML Files!

I’ll give you a step by step tutorial(keep reading)

Google Maps SEO Tips

This is a summary from a great article: KML and sitemaps for SEO – The definitive guide by Martijn Beijk:

Most of you are using the Google Local Business Center. And some of you are using the bulk-upload feature. If not – and you are a business owner you should really start using it. Sign up here.

There are several ways to increase your business visibility in the Google maps search engines.
But the Local Business Center is the way to claim your business listing within the Google maps search engine & one thing you’ll know for sure – that this does drive traffic to your website.

The idea of this tutorial is to explain how to get your business data to Google in a fast & efficient – but different way by using KML. This guide is targeted at small businesses who have used the bulk-upload feature before – but from the examples shown you can get an idea for individual listings as well.

Google Places SEO – How To Do It

In a great article by Mike Ramsey called “Local Search Recipe: Making KML Files and GEO Sitemaps Are a Piece of Cake” He says:

“Last month I shared one of my favorite recipes on tracking local search data with Google Analytics for WordPress. This month I figured that one of the most uncovered and “uncooked” areas in local search marketing is KML data and the use of Geo Sitemaps. So – I decided to put together a guide to help anyone who is struggling to understand how KML/GeoSitemap + local is a win- win….win.

Approximate Bake Time:

10 minutes

Ingredients

1 verified Google Webmaster Account

1 FTP uploader application

1 computer (Mac preferred. PC’s tend to get sticky unless sprayed with Pam)

*½ glass of beverage

*2 slices of Dairy Queen Ice Cream Cake.

*Optional ingredients for optimal experience.

Background

First – it is important to understand what a few of these new words mean….

KML– Key Hole Markup Language (kml) is a file format used to display geographic data in an Earth browser – such as Google Maps and Bing Maps as well. You can create KML files to pinpoint locations – add image overlays – & expose rich data in new ways. KML is an international standard maintained by the Open Geospatial Consortium – Inc. (OGC).

Geo Sitemap- Google Geo Sitemaps is an extension of the Sitemap protocol that enables you to publish geospatial content (geo content) to Google – in order to make it searchable in Google Earth & on Google Maps. With Geo Sitemaps – you can tell Googlebot about your geo content – rather than waiting for Google to discover it “in the wild”.

Directions

1. Go to GeoSitemapGenerator.com – which is a free (& amazing) tool that allows you to plug in the needed information and then download your very own copy of a geositemap and kml file.”

Google Places SEO Infographic

Hope this helps you out – if you have any questions do not hesitate to ask!

Google Places SEO Ranking Factors Info Graphic

Thanks,

Charlie

Download this infographic.

Source: World Class Media