When it comes to local SEO, if your business is not listed in Google Places, you’re lost. When anyone does a search for local terms, such as “cincinnati dry cleaners,” they’ll get a map at the very top of the page, before any of the organic search results.
Example of local map results for a local search query
Needless to say, if you’re a dry cleaner in Cincinnati, you want to own that top maps listing. But how do you get there? Simple, you claim your company listing in Google Places, much like the Yellow Pages of the web. Of course, then you may have to do some local SEO to get to the top, but claiming your listing is the first step. So, before you read the rest of this post, go claim your Google Places listing (it’s free)…go ahead…I’ll wait.
Google Tags
Okay, all set? Now that you’ve claimed your Google Places listing, Google is offering 30 days free advertising with Google Tags for Google Places. Google Tags are a simple way to help your site stand out amongst the competition in the map results. In the image above I searched for “cincinnati dry cleaners,” and you’ll notice all the listings in the maps section are pretty much the same. Now compare that to the maps results for “plastic surgeon in los angeles“:
Example of Tags in Google Places Listings
Notice the yellow tag beneath Athleo L. Cambre, M.D. That is a Google Tag. And it quite obviously makes that particular listing stand out quite a bit more. They even have a call to action (“Visit our website”). I actually had to run quite a few local search queries before I found any company at all taking advantage of Google tags for the image above, which means your competition is probably not on this yet. This could be a great way to get more clicks than your competitors even if you don’t hold one of the top spots.
Google Tags Pricing
Google has been offering tag-enhanced listings for $25 per month, but they are currently running promotion – 30 days free. You have until July 23rd to sign up, so this is your chance to give Google tags a try and you don’t even have to pay for it.
If anyone has seen a serious change as a result of adding tags to your Google Places listing, I’d love it (and I’m sure the readers would too) if you could leave a comment and let me know what kind of change you experienced.
[Google Places] [Google Tags Promotion]
im wondering if its possible to change the tag to drop in our own anchor text. its not quite as user-friendly an interface as most google things are.
Hi Lauren, sorry about the late reply…your comment must have slipped past me.
As far as I know you can’t specify anchor text for your tags, but you can choose from a number of different tag types.
According to one of Google’s support pages for tags:
You can add any of the following tags: