Having a well placed Local Listing can bring a lot of geographically targeted traffic to your website, so its important to get it right, especially if the national keyphrases you are challenging for are competitive. Having created successful listings, here is my advice:

1: Claim Your Listing

If you have never considered registering a local business listing with Google, the chances are that your business is not listed – especially if your business is somewhat new. However there will be occasions when businesses are already included in the listings, just waiting to be claimed.

If this applies to you, claim your listing immediately, the benefits are obvious – Once you have claimed your listing you can add photos, edit your information and select categories. All of which has a huge effect on the rankings. Also, if you don’t claim it, you’re vulnerable to another person doing so!

2: Have A Physical Address In Your Targeted City

When submitting your listing, you are required to enter your physical address. As Google wants to supply its users with relevant results, it makes sense to return results within a specific area. If you’re based just outside of the city you are targeting, consider investing in a virtual office, as you will be able to get an official address, usually in the centre of the city.

3: Include Keywords In The Title

Although this does by all accounts go against the guidelines set by Google, it is far from well policed. Adding your keywords into your business name can have a great impact on your listings placement – just don’t over do it.

4: Include Your Location In The Title

This may not be possible for everybody, but if you can include your location within the title of your listing, you are likely to see your listing appear above those who do not.

Ideal format:

Company Name – Service Keywords – Location

5: Include Keywords In Your Custom Categories

Although when submitting your listing you will need to select one of the pre-determined categories (at least one category that matches suggestions as you type), you are then able to add your own.

Make sure these categories are keyword orientated

e.g: Category: personal trainer
additional categories: personal training
one to one personal training

6: Include Your Keywords In The Description

Much like is suggested with your web pages, including your keywords into your description can also have a positive impact. Once again though, don’t over do it. Your text needs to make sense and your keyword inclusion not appear to be forced in any way.

7: Include Your Location In The Description

Adding your location into your description is pretty easy to do, but is often something which is overlooked by many when creating listings.

Many will say that adding your location into your title is far more beneficial, including it here as well is something that should be done.

8: Include Your Product/Services In The Additional Details Field

Although if done incorrectly this can appear somewhat spammy, carefully including one or two of your keywords in your additional services can also help to boost your listing.

Examples
One To One Training: Yes
Home Personal Training: Yes

9: Include A Local Phone Number (not a free phone, or mobile phone number)

Your phone number can confirm that you are indeed based where you claim to be – and more specifically within the city that you are targeting. Many companies will opt to include a free phone number in their listing, you should resist this and include your local phone number, complete with your specific area code.

10: Include Your Physical Address On Your Website

Although you submit your physical address when creating your listing, having your physical address on your website is also advantageous.

Be careful not to include more than one address though (if you have separate offices for example) as this can have detrimental effects on your local business centre result.

11: Upload Photos

Google appears to be pushing for users to complete their listings as much as possible and as images certainly help improve the users experience, it makes perfect sense for the listings that have images to list highly.

It may also have a positive impact on the amount of users that click through your advert over those that do not.

Add photos occasionally as it will show that you are keeping on top of your listing and keeping it updated – something which Google likes.

12: Link To Videos

If your company has some videos that can be uploaded, the smart thing to do is to create a YouTube account and upload them there. Link to your YouTube account via your listing to instantly create another web reference for yourself.

13: Create Coupons

Coupons are not believed to have much of an impact on the positioning of your listing, but can work wonders for increasing the amount of people that click on your listing due to the enhanced appearance when compared to listings without coupons.

14: Include Your Business Hours

Completing this area won’t give you any opportunity to include your keywords, but will help those who are viewing your advert know when you operate, which may lead to a follow up phone call. It also ticks another completed section box, so its worth spending the two minutes that it will take doing so.

15: Get Reviews!

Reviews are heavily weighted within the Local Listings, so spend some time acquiring them from your customers. Once your listing can be found, those with Google accounts can simply write a review about your business, but it is also beneficial to gain reviews about your business from other websites.

In the UK these are the most frequently used review websites are:
Yell
Scoot
Thomson Local
UK Business Directory
Free Index
Touch Local
UK Small Business Directory
City Visitor
Wahanda