Now that you have made all of these improvements, you are looking for ways to squeak out the last little bit of rank you can in your Google Business listing. Whether or not these tips actually improve your rank are still being hotly debated, but going off the premise that Google loves information, providing more information can only help.

Tip 1: Give Google the information

Completely fill out your Google Places listing! Google Places even provides a little percentage bar because it is important – make sure it is 100% completed. Google loves information, so give it as much as possible without being spammy. Spammy is always bad.

Tip 2: Include a picture with your listing

It’s simple, it’s quick, and even if Google Places doesn’t love you for it, potential customers will. Grab your digital camera, go outside, and take a good picture of the front of your business. An optimal picture will include your sign and enough surrounding information to help potential customers locate your business as they drive down the street. Go back inside, and upload that picture to your listing. Done.

Tip 3: Include a video with your listing

Not as simple as a picture, but as always with Google, more information is better. Include a commercial, or use your webcam to talk about your business. Make it as professional as possible, and upload the video to your listing.

Tip 4: Include a direct link to a critical part of your website

Google Places recently added the ability to include a link to specific information on your website. For instance, if you are a restaurant with a menu online, go to the Additional Details section, type “Our Menu” on the left box, and in the right box, put the URL of your menu. Your Google Places listing will now have a link directly to your menu.

This can be used for online applications or any other critical information that a potential customer would want to get to directly on your website. Do not use it just to create more links to your website pages.

Tip 5: Do not include local information in the categories

With Google Local Business, you used to be able to include the city or state in the custom category and it would greatly increase ranking – this is no longer the case. In fact, Google Places penalizes this behavior, and if a customer looks for more results (links to Google maps), it will usually strip the local terms ie. “Grand Rapids Pest Control” would become “pest control”. Sticking to the supplied categories is usually good enough, unless your business is very unique.

These final tweaks will help you squeak ahead of stiff local business competition. At McFarlan Enterprises, we love to see local businesses succeed online, and we hope this series has been beneficial for your company. If you would like to use our professional search engine optimization services, give us a call at (616) 717-5805 now!

In the old days (pre-Google Local Business), all one had to do was spam the internet with links to their website using keywords as the anchor text, and presto – they would be organically ranked for the keywords. Organic listings for local businesses are no longer as important. Now, a position in the top four on Google Places will bring you far more business than organic rankings, and as such is far more important – but ranking in Google Places is different.

Tip 1: Leverage your address and phone number

Just like on-site optimization, you need to make sure that whenever your business is mentioned on any website, your address and local phone number are right next to it. Any listing at any of the following websites must include your business address and phone number:

• Local business directories (mlive.com)
• City chamber of commerce
• Statewide business directories (mibusinesses.net)
• Article submission sites (ezinearticles.com)
• Nationwide business directories (bizhwy.com)
• Press releases (1888pressreleases.com)

Any time you can add your business name, address, and local phone number to a website – do it. Every time Google finds your business name, address, and phone number online, it adds one more piece of proof that you exist, and the more pieces of proof you have, the higher your business will be ranked in Google Places.

Tip 2: Leverage your happy customers

One thing that Google has done an amazing job at is providing users with information about businesses. They crawl the local city business directories and include reviews along with your Google Places listing. This can be a double-edged sword! I have seen businesses that are devastated by poor online reviews, who lose all of their customers because of the damage to their reputation. With the old Google Local Business, you had no recourse against these bad reviews.

Now with Google Places you can respond to bad reviews, but they will remain part of your listing. My advice: try to keep your customers happy. A happy customer tells one person about their good experience, a mad customer tells 20 people about their bad experience, and a mad customer with internet access will tell thousands of people for the life of your business about their bad experience. Try to keep bad experiences to a minimum, and if they do create a negative review online, try to work with them to remove it.

Here is a real-life, current example: I am in the process of looking for a used car, and as part of my search, I tried searching for used cars in Grand Rapids, MI. Several Google Places listings came up, and I clicked one for more information. The Google Places listing had one star out of five, and there was nothing but negative reviews about how the salesmen are liars, the cars died ten miles off the lot, etc. Needless to say, I moved on without giving that business another thought. Fair or not, this is what your potential customers are going to do when they see all negative reviews.

In addition to keeping bad experiences to a minimum, encourage your happy customers to post a review about your business online! Give them an incentive, like $10 off their next service, or anything else you can think of to say positive things about your business. They can post their review directly on your Google Places listing, or at these sites:

• insiderpages.com
• citysearch.com

Reviews are more proof to Google that your business exists, and even negative reviews can improve your ranking – but keep in mind that too many negative reviews will drive customers away from your business, and you will never get the chance to talk to them or explain the situation.

Tip 3: Patience

Finally, patience is the key. Adding your business listing to websites across the internet will take Google even longer to crawl and index than changes to just your website. Plan to make a block of changes as soon as you can, and then wait three to six months to see where the changes cause your Google Places to move before making more changes.

In Optimizing Google Places Part 4, we’ll discuss the final tweaks you can make to your Google Places listing to squeak the last little bit of optimization and get ahead of your competition. Need some help navigating the internet to improve your Google Places listing? Call McFarlan Enterprises today at (616) 717-5805!

Tip 1: Leverage your address and phone number

In the grand scheme of things, the number one piece of proof that you can give to Google Places that your business truly exists within the city you say it does is your address. Place your address on every single page of your website! Do not use a graphic to display your address because Google cannot read that (yet).

Header, footer, sidebar – it doesn’t matter. Just make sure you have a text version of your address and phone number displayed on every single page of your website. Make sure that it matches your Google Places listing exactly! Remember, this is your best proof that you exist, so use it. I am still astounded at the number of businesses that do not have their address and phone number on every page of their website.

Tip 2: Title your home page using keywords customers would use to find you

If you followed the advice in Part 1 and named your business this way, just putting your business name in the tags will be enough to complete this requirement. If not, then just include the keywords next to your business name. Here are some examples of good titles:

Grand Rapids Pest Control LLC
RoachBlaster LLC | Pest Control Services in Grand Rapids, MI
RoachBlaster LLC – Providing pest control in Grand Rapids, MI

What not to do:

Grand Rapids Pest Control LLC | Pest Control | Roach Control | Bug Control | Exterminator (spammy)
RoachBlaster LLC – We blast your roaches! (no keywords)
(very bad)

Google absolutely hates spam! Don’t use spammy keywords, titles, descriptions, or anything else. Keep it simple and sweet – this is part of the reason why the name of your business is one of the best things to leverage for search engine optimization.

Tip 3: Include your address and local phone number in the home page description

Again, we are trying to prove to Google Places that your business exists in the the location you say it does. So in addition to your blurb about your years of experience and excellent customer services, include your address and phone number with local area code. I read somewhere that Google is trying to implement this into calling your business – but don’t quote me on it.

What not to do: spam. Don’t try to spam your way to the top in the description. Mentioning pest control twenty times will make Google unhappy. Keep it short, tell people who you are, and include your address and phone number.

Tip 4: Use your home page H1 tag

On your website home page, be sure to include your business name and the keywords that are used to find your business within H1 tags. If they happen to be the same, great! In combination with the title tag, the H1 tag tells Google what the main theme of the page is – and you want that main theme to be the service you are providing.

Finally, remember that any changes to your website will not change your Google Places ranking overnight. Google will have to crawl your website and index the changes, and it can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months for that to happen.

In Optimizing Google Places Part 3, we will discuss the techniques used to increase your Google Places ranking outside of your website. It’s all about proving to Google that your business exists where you say it does, and off-site optimization is an integral part of the proof.

Need a search engine optimization professional to help your business? Call McFarlan Enterprises today at (616) 717-5805!

Tip 1: Name your business using the keywords that customers would use to search for your services

If your business is named RoachBlaster LLC and you provide pest control services, you will not rank as high in Google Places as a business called Pest Control LLC. Better yet, if you own a pest control business in Grand Rapids, MI, call it Grand Rapids Pest Control LLC.

If your business name uses the terms that people will use to search for your business, you will rank higher than your competition and capture those coveted top positions in Google Places. Don’t know what keywords users would use to locate you? Try using the Google Keyword Tool to find the most search keywords closest to your business.

Tip 2: Open your business as close to the city center as possible

Google Places puts a lot of importance on your business location in relation to the city center. Using the pest control example above, a company with an address within Grand Rapids will rank higher than a company in Wyoming, even though Wyoming is a suburb of Grand Rapids.

In addition, a company located on the outskirts of the city of Grand Rapids will not rank as high as a company with offices located downtown near the city center.

Tip 3: Buy a domain name that contains the keywords that customers would use to search for your services

If you are the owner of RoachBlaster LLC, and you own RoachBlaster.com, you may think you are all set – but you are missing out on a huge chunk of almost free search engine optimization. Sure, customers could find you if they searched for “roachblaster”, but that doesn’t help you if they don’t know your business name, and it won’t help your ranking in Google Places.

Instead, buy grandrapidspestcontrol.com, or grandrapids-pestcontrol.com, or any variation with hyphens to ensure that your keywords are in your domain name. This tells Google Places that your website is about pest control in Grand Rapids, and your website content will confirm this, ultimately leading to a higher search engine rank.

Tip 4: Use a phone number with a local area code

There is still some discussion about whether this matters, but if you have the option to list your local phone number or your toll-free number, opt to list your local phone number and area code as your main number, and then you can add your toll-free number as an additional number.

The entire goal of this process is to prove to Google Places that your business really does exist and is located in the city that you say it is, and anything information that you have to give to Google Places in this effort will help your business rank higher in the long run.

There are many other aspects of Google Places ranking that we will discuss in later articles, but all things being equal, these tips will give you the edge over your competition in search engine rankings. In Optimizing Google Places Part 2, we will discuss the techniques used on your website to increase your Google Places ranking ahead of the local competition in your area.

If you need professional search engine optimization services, call McFarlan Enterprises at (616) 717-5805 now!

Instead, you can write code to scroll through the list and add items to the combobox, while tracking what you have already added already to prevent duplication. How? Append values added to the combobox to a string, and before adding another value, check to see if it is already in the string.

Private Sub Userform_Initialize()
 
 'declare variables
 Dim UniqueString As String
 
 'activate Sheet1 and select A1
 Worksheets("Sheet1").Activate 
 ActiveSheet.[A1].Select
 
 'scroll down column A until the first empty cell
 'if the active cell's value is not in UniqueString
 'then append it to UniqueString and add it to ComboBox1
 Do Until IsEmpty(ActiveCell.Value)
  If InStr(1, UniqueString, " " & ActiveCell.Value & " ") = 0 Then
   UniqueString = " " & UniqueString & ActiveCell.Value & " "
   ComboBox1.Additem ActiveCell.Value
  End If
  ActiveCell.Offset(1,0).Select
 Loop
 
End Sub

Dynamic PDFs

A recent project we acquired needed on-demand creation of PDF files using information stored in a manufacturing supplier database. Utilizing the PHP-based FPDF class, we were able to quickly create and format PDF files for our client’s suppliers. With the click of a mouse, a customized PDF is created and sent to the proper supplier.

About the FPDF Class

FPDF is a great open-source class for the dynamic creation of PDF files. It uses PHP, it comes with excellent documentation, and using it is a quick way to get started creating PDFs. As the saying goes, “Time is money,” and saving time saves our clients money. Why re-invent the wheel?

Why use Dynamic PDF Files?

PDFs are a great way to give information to your customers. PDFs are used worldwide, are well-controlled, and are easily printed or quickly saved by the user. No ugly webpage headers, missing background colors, and other problems with printing webpages. In our project, we used them to create supplier reports on the fly, which were customized for each supplier with rolling six-month quality statistics.

Another example of using dynamic PDFs is Mel Trotter Ministries, a non-profit that helps the homeless in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They create dynamic PDF tax receipts for any of their online donations, using their logo and the donor information. This immediately gives the donor the tax receipt without having to wait, and Mel Trotter does not need to send out a mailed letter that uses time and postage – allowing them to give more to the homeless.

Try It Before You Buy It!

Want to give dynamic PDF creation a spin? We can talk about it until we are blue in the face, but once you see it, we are sure you will think of ways that it can help your business. If you would like McFarlan Enterprises to implement this excellent solution for you, call 866-334-0210 to get started immediately!

Google Map

One of our long-time clients, One Step Realty, Inc., recently requested that we implement a way to display all of their available rental properties using Google Maps. We were happy to oblige, and using the Google Map API, integrated their current property management database into their website.

Google Maps API Key

To get started, we first obtained a Google Maps API key for their website at onesteprealtyonline.com. A Google Maps API key is required in order to query the Google Maps API for map information, specifically the latitude and longitude coordinates of addresses. Looking these up by hand and manually entering them into the mySQL property database is not viable solution for anyone, so automating this process saves on both time and potential errors.

Latitude and Longitude

Next, we had to update One Step Realty’s current mySQL property database to store the latitude and longitude information for each property – which is simple enough. The hard part is getting the latitude and longitude for the 150+ properties already stored in the database. We are not big fans of data entry, and you shouldn’t have to be either. Using a custom PHP program with the Google Maps API allowed us to update their property database in a matter of minutes.

What about rental properties added to the database after the update? To support new properties, we upgraded the current website administration pages to query the Google Maps API for the latitude and longitude of any new rental properties and store them in the mySQL database. Why look something up by hand and manually enter it when you can automate the entire process? With the back-end infrastructure in place, we could move on to creating the customer experience.

Put Up or Shut Up

Finally, the fun part! We have all of the information stored in the mySQL database, the next step is to display it to potential customers, which happens in two parts:

We first created a PHP script that queries the property database and displays the map information in XML format, which can be imported using Google API functions. XML is currently the standard for most cross-system communication, for everything from websites to laboratory equipment.

Second, with the XML output in place, we used javascript to import the XML file, create the Google Map, add the markers, and display it to potential property renters. With a little minor formatting, the property map is an at-a-glance view of all the available properties that are managed by One Step Realty, Inc. Any property marker can be clicked for a picture, property summary, and a link to the website page for that property.

Innovative Website Solutions to Drive Your Business

With a simple upgrade like displaying real estate listings on a Google Map, One Step Realty increased their visibility, improving customer trust and responsiveness. With 150+ property markers scattered across a Google Map of Michigan, it is clear that One Step Realty is a leader in Michigan property management, and this solution lets customers know precisely that.

This is just one example of the many website solutions what we strive to create for our clients! You will be suprised at how affordable these solutions can be, and how far they place your website ahead of your competition. If you are interested in implementing a similar solution for your business, please call McFarlan Enterprises at 866-334-0210 for your website evaluation!