How do you claim your Google Places listing in the Google Maps?
As you may or may not know Google has an area specifically for local business owners to showcase their business. This is called Google places or Google Business listings. Google automatically populates its listings many ways (yellowpages, superpages, your business phone company, ect.) and other sources as well. All of the listings are initially unverified and may contain errors about your business. The most important factor for your listing is to claim it.
If you haven’t claimed your business listing you should do it as soon as possible. There are many reasons to claim your listing such as better rankings, updating contact information, and listing specials ect. One of the main reasons you should claim your listing is to ensure spammers, prankers, and worse your competition! There have been many horror stories of company’s listings being marked as no longer in business and that company losing potential clients.
If your business is not currently listed then you can sign up for free and get listed also.
Here we will show you how to find your local listing, claim and edit it so that you can be found with the most relevant business information.
Is your business listed?
The first step is to search to see if you have a local listing with Google. You can search your business name and address.
Unverified Local LIsting
Once you find your listing you will see whether it is verified or not verified.
If your business listing doesn’t show up when you search then you need to submit a listing.
You might find that your information isn’t correct, don’t worry once we have claimed your listing we will be able to edit all the information.
The next step is to click more and then click the edit link to start claiming your local listing.
View and Edit local listing Details
Start your business claiming process
If you currently have a google account log in, if you don’t you can easily create a new account.
Once you have logged into your account select claim and start editing your business information. Correct any information that isn’t up to date. You can also add photos and videos of your business.
Once you have done this you can validate your business listing. You can either have a postcard sent to your location or have them verify you by phone. Many times your listing must be verified by postcard if you are a new business or if you have changed a phone number.
Once you have received a post card you can enter your pin and your listing will be live within 24 hours with up-to-date information and will ensure that your listing isn’t hijacked by someone you don’t want to have control over such an important Google benefit.
Now that your local listing is up to date we can start talking about optimizing it for better placement. You can now compete with big name businesses so contact us today for Google maps optimization.