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Getting to the top of Google is no easy task, and with the advent of Google's free business listings its become even harder if you're focusing on geographical search engine optimisation (SEO). Many smaller businesses only cover a certain area, so it's essential that they come up for local towns. What is the Google Business Center?Google's Business Center allows people, free of charge, to create a free business listing. By entering your location, you can show up in Google's 'local business results'. The great thing is, the local business results rank above normal search engine listings. This is triggered by a Google user typing in a location with a service, so it deems local results more relevant.
You can get started at http://www.google.com/local/add. Standing out from the crowdOf course, by being free, people have been quick to take up Google's kind offer. This means for popular areas, you are facing the same problem as with regular SEO: lots of competition. So how do you get to the top of Google business listings? As with normal listings, there is an algorithm that decides what local business will come up first. Of course, Google doesn't release the factors behind the algorithm, but we can take a good guess based on what information is available to us. Company DescriptionMake the most of your description when creating your business listing. Make it factual, opposed to a sales pitch as it may face rejection otherwise. Be sure to include your vital keyword phrases. Try to fill in all the fields Google makes available. ReviewsGoogle search results are all about relevance. One way of helping rankings is through independent reviews. Essentially, the more you have, the better. Of course we wouldn't recommend creating fake reviews, so instead, try to recruit your clients to do so. No doubt it will help if they include vital keywords in their testimonial for you. FeaturesAs with the Description, it's important to make the most of what's there. With business listings, you can add videos and coupons, so try and create some. The more basics things include uploading a company logo and photos and are well worth doing in terms of rankings, as well as attracting users to click through to your website or give you a call. So that's it, pretty simple! We can't tell you which factors are the most important, but it's worth noting that we have seen listings with many reviews come up for search terms not related to them. This indicates reviews have a very strong influence. To encourage reviews, provide a link to your listing on company website, blog, Twitter or any other online marketing mediums you use. Good luck!
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