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Have Your Company Listed Free in Google Maps
By Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
» Click here for  PDF &  Word Versions
Do you want to advertise the physical location of your business
for free and get a little extra Google exposure? Thanks to Google
Maps this is possible and not many people (read ‘your
competition’) seem to know about it.
First I think I need to show you what I mean here. As an example
click
here to see the location of my company, StepForth
Search Engine Placement Inc. on Google Maps (no you don’t
need Google Earth to do this). What should appear is a map of
my
home city, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada along with a marker
identifying my business location and a comment balloon providing
address and detailed information. This information was placed
on Google with my input, entirely free of charge. All that Google
needed to do was confirm my physical location by sending a letter
in the mail with a code that would allow me go online and verify
my physical address. That is it, as simple as pie!
Why Should You Bother With Google Maps?
If simply getting more exposure on an emerging Google tool isn’t
enough here are the frills that Google provides freely with
this map listing:
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Google allows you to offer coupons to visitors of your
map listing. These coupons are touted as a way to “reward
loyal customers and attract new ones”. At this time,
coupons are only available to businesses located in the
US.
-
Once your address is fully verified you have full
control over your listing. You can add or delete non-address
information
at will.
-
You can add all of your business locations
from a single account.
Finally my personal favorite;
all that your client or prospective client has to do
to find your office
is click on a link on your
website and voila, they are taken to an accurate
road map with directions. They can even click a
button and see the satellite
view of your location; very slick indeed!
Do it Yourself
Here is the process for you to get your site
added to Google Maps.
Step 1: Add Your Business
Visit Google Local’s “Add/Edit Your Business” page.
There you will be asked to enter your Google account login and
password (or you can quickly create one) before entering the
submission area. Once in, you need to provide standard business
address and contact information, a 200-character description
of your business, the forms of payment you accept from consumers
and your operating hours.
Step 2: Choose a Category
Next you will be asked to provide a category that best describes
your business. You can enter a phrase here and Google will
try to find a related category to make this process simpler
for you. You have the option to appear in up to 5 separate
categories.
Step 3: Preview and Select Verification Method
Your business listing along with a proof of your business’s
mapped location is shown for your approval. Here you can
make any necessary final tweaks to your listing. After that,
you
have to choose which verification method that Google will
use to confirm your address; do you want Google to call
you or receive
a postcard to confirm your address? I chose the postcard
because frankly, I love the idea of getting personal mail
from Google
and it seems like a far more effective way to confirm an
address. In addition, when I received StepForth’s
confirmation letter it came along with a $35 AdWords coupon
(for businesses
new to AdWords): click the picture on the right for a sample.
Step 4: Verify 
Follow the instructions provided to you by either the postcard or the phone and your listing will be active within 6 weeks.
Adding Your Google Maps Listing
Here are a couple of ways to add your new Google listing to
your website.
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One is to embed a cool JavaScript map of your location
into your website using Google’s Maps API, a sample
of which is shown here.
This option requires more than I can cover in this article
and frankly I have to take the time learn how to
do it first myself. That said it does look very slick
so I anticipate StepForth will be adding it as soon
as I can find the time.
-
The second, much simpler option is to link directly to your
listing from your website. Start by visiting http://maps.google.com and
type in your business name into the search window. If
your listing is active, it should come up within the
results. Click on this listing and you will see your
location appear
on the
map along with your company’s information balloon. Click
the title within the balloon and your detailed Google Maps page
will appear. Now you can simply copy the URL in your browser
and paste that into your website so that your users can find
your location. The other option is to take this process a step
further and click on the “View Larger Map” link,
at which point a far more detailed map will appear and
you can copy this URL for use within your site.
Whatever
you do just remember that all you need to do is find
the page layout that you want your customers to see
and
then
copy the URL so that you can link to this listing
within your website.
Here is how StepForth’s Google Maps listing is
currently linked from our “About” page.
What the Future May Hold for Google Maps
Having a listing on Google Maps does not currently have any
noticeable impact on organic Google Rankings but I can see
how it might in the future. For example, it would be very
much like Google to add an icon next to each ranking that
has a correlating Google Maps profile. After all, when creating
a map profile Google does note that they may add advertising
to Google Maps API in the future. Even if Google Maps is not
added to organic listings in any way, you can bet that there
will be more focused push to compete against giants like MapBlast and MapQuest in the future; these are very lucrative markets
that Google cannot ignore.
So get your company on Google Maps, it is free after all. Moreover,
remember that Google’s history states that anything they
add advertising to will ultimately get more exposure.
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