Did you know your business and its physical location may already be on Google Maps, and, if it’s not, you can quickly add it through Google’s Local Business Center? Local Business Center is a web application developed by Google that provides a free listing for businesses on Google Maps. Only a business owner or authorized representative may claim their business listing. By claiming or adding your business listing you are increasing your business’s visibility on Google to those looking for your type of business in your area. It’s like free yellow pages advertising in the most popular phone book.

Google Local Business Listings typically show up when a user searches for specific business types followed by the city, for instance, “hotels eureka california”. A Google map appears in the top position of the organic listings (search results listed on search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being paid advertisements) with as many as ten links with phone numbers. Clicking “More results near ...” at the bottom of the list, generates a new page with an alphabetical list for each registered business and a Google map with the location of each of the businesses listed identified with a red peg.

Through the Google Local Business Center a business can easily add not only location and contact information but also:

• a summary of products and services
• hours of operation
• business category and custom attributes (i.e. free delivery)
• payment options
• photos and videos
• multiple reviews from customers
• coupons
• links to the listing
• edits to existing information
• and more

These features have search engine optimization (SEO) benefits because they broaden and improve the relevance of Google’s search results. Here are just a few guidelines for providing information:

• The business name must be the full legal business name.
• Use an email account with a domain that matches the business website address. For example, if the business website is www.mycompany.com, a matching email address would be me [at] mycompany [dot] com.
• PO Boxes do not count as a physical location.
• If the business operates in multiple areas, do not create a listing for each area. Create a listing for the main office and add the other areas in the custom attributes.
• Do not add extraneous keywords or a description of the business into the business name as this could be viewed by the search engine as spamming.
• When adding categories use valuable keywords related to the business.

Providing Google with as much information as possible is one of the best SEO policies a business can have. The more information, the better the chances that when Google changes their search criteria (and that’s been a given in the past) the new information will be available to them. Providing as much information as possible is a good SEO policy in general. Businesses that take advantage of free listings on online business directories as well as social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Merchant Circle and LinkedIn will have a marked increase in search rankings.

Once information for a listing is submitted to Google Local Business Center it will need to be verified by phone or postcard. Both methods supply the business owner with a PIN that is needed to enter their Local Business Center account.

Search engine optimization (SEO) for local audiences is fairly new to Internet marketing and gaining in popularity and importance. There’s is a huge disparity in search results worldwide. A particular product or service may be appealing to an audience in one place, but of no importance to someone in a different part of the world. Local SEO helps bridge this gap. With local SEO, results are more customized and targeted to the needs of a particular group of people. At no cost and with little implementation time it’s easy now to “go local”.

Learn more about technology and how it affects us daily. Come to the next Redwood Technology Consortium (RTC) meeting.

Lynn Harvey and Joel Mielke are owners of Carson Park Design, a full-service advertising agency in Eureka. Locally, they are members of the Redwood Technology Consortium and are active in both the Eureka and Arcata Chambers of Commerce and the Small Business Development Center.

Copyright 2010, Eureka Times-Standard Newspaper. The print version of this article first appeared in the 1/28/10 edition of the Times-Standard.