google places

Google Places for Your Service Industry

May 23, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

An innovative business known as PlumberSEO.net has found a way to use Google Places for service industry networking. While they specialize in working with HVAC contractors and Plumbers, PlumberSEO helps those in their industry take their businesses to the next level with effective online marketing with social media, SEO, map optimization and many other internet marketing tools.

Find a Plumber and More

It used to be that when you were looking for a plumber, electrician, roofer, or any other type of service contractor, you picked up the yellow pages and almost always went with the one that had the most impressive ad, the most credentials, and the most well-known company brand name. In today’s world, very few people still use this traditional method of printed resources, instead, they head to the web to look for the best options for service contractors in their area. One of the ways in which Google has made this search easier for consumers is by adding Google Places.

Check out this quick video to get familiar with Google Places if you require a bit more in-depth understanding.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpZan96KHOM]

Now when people look for service contractors in their area, they commonly head to Bing, Yahoo, Google, or other favored search engines as well as to social media sites where they may ask friends or family if they can suggest a contractor in the area.

A recent survey of 2,000 consumers revealed the 86% of the surveyed use the internet to find local business, 74% of those cited search engines as where they go when seeking a local retail or service industry contractor.

Local businesses that are not showing up on page one of search engines are missing major opportunities to grow their business as most people tend to decide their choice in contractors from page one of search engine results.

How to Manage Google Places

Google Places isn’t without its own flaws. However, most of these are user related and may just require a bit more of an in-depth understanding of how Google Places works. If you have had any issues you may want to check out this video for some helpful tips if you find you need help troubleshooting.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/user/GooglePlaces]

In addition, be sure to check out how to Optimizing Your Google Places Page to get the best results for your business.

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Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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Digital Marketing: Why Your Businesses Phone Number is Crucial to Success (Part 1)

January 18, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

“Name, Address and Phone Number, oh if you have a website or social media page you can add that two, but we don’t care” the Internet!

Phone Numbers are Crucial to Success!!! They are more important than domains!

It used to be you used a fancy 800 number to look impressive or to develop branding, take 1-800-FLOWERS for example. 1-800 Flowers was a great branding campaign that generated massive brand recognition for a referral service.

Google really brought the attention back to local when it launched Google places. Google used both the local phone number and the address to enhance its search results to bring business back to local merchants and while it sent SEO professionals scrambling, local business owners were thirsty to learn more.

Why Phone Numbers are Crucial!

Take any listing service or data set and you’ll find three consistent elements to how it organizes its data, first is the name, second the phone number and third is the address. Website domains and social media are nowhere to be found now, nor will they in the future. In fact, when Patch Media launched its local directory for Merchants and Business Owners the AOL local sensation had one problem, no address no listing… Google places needed that three digit identifier to decide if the address matched phone number, and Yelp listed businesses by name, phone numbers and address.

Branding Trend: It’s All Local!

In a time when people are being frugal with their money, they’re a lot quicker to call a local number then an 800 number. The fact is people actually avoid 800 numbers because they prefer to have someone local and hesitate at the thought that the number will be routed to India. Local is the big Brand in the United States right now, take a look in both Traditional and Digital Media and you’re bound to see the word Local at just about every other turn.

Phone Numbers: How Do I Get Them, Use them, Keep them?

There are a few tricks that can help local business owners stretch their influence and presence. Take MagicJack, a nifty little device that sells for $20 and provides phone service for $20 a year! After Google Places launched black hat SEO professionals started buying these as fast as they could. You see they take the MajicJack, register the phone number and then connect a local name to the local number and give it a local address through something like a UPS Store.

i.e. The Actual business is a plumber in Parkland, Florida with a 954 area code number. The blackhat SEO Pro would buy (5) five MagicJacks with local phone numbers, then open a UPS Box in towns around Parkland that the plumber served. Five Splash Pages later, that plumber looked local in six locations but really only existed in one.

If you’re a digital or virtual business, then the issue is the same. The phone number is crucial to looking local and you may be in NYC, but with the right number you now appear to be in LA, Moscow, Paris, Chicago, Miami etc. If your using a service like Regus and their Virtual Office, you can set the Magic Jack or Vanity number to forward to that location until you have an office or employee to forward it to later.

Port a number! Always Port a number, I inherited a phone number 4 years ago and I still get calls for children’s clothing from some company that had it before I did. If I sold children’s clothes I be rolling in free leads.

KEEP YOUR NUMBER!!!! The Android and Mr. Number Effect

Want to know what’s really pissing off telemarketers and collection agencies?

Android and Mr. Number! Android phones from version 1.5 have had a feature that allows people to save a contact and set the contact to forward directly to voicemail. Mr. Number is an application on all devices that blocks suspected spam (set by community feedback), unknown numbers and numbers you blacklist! So before you give up your number and get a new one, better think twice. If you do get a new number check it against the Mr. Number database, if its listed as a spam, credit collection or telemarketer get rid of it!

(Part 2 – Using Phone Numbers to Track Marketing Success)

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Google Tags Calls it Quits

April 28, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

It seems as if April 29th will be the last day of existence for Google Tags. If you have ever used Google Maps or Places, you have likely seen the red tags that represent an ad campaign launched by Google in a testing phase about a year ago. This marketing attempt was created to allow business owners to enhance the representation of their businesses on any Google Maps or Places searches. If a viewer was browsing areas near the businesses location, this handy tag not only designated a landmark, but also provided a more detailed look at that business.

What Are Google Tags?

Once clicked on the tag can display a variety of information including:

Directions to and from
Zoom in and out
Street view
Save to map options

And even the options to send the tag information via email, GPS, and other car systems. In addition, when viewing Google Maps or Places in full screen, other options on the left-side panel also provide another great looking manner of business advertising by showing users:

Thumbnail photos of the location
Other nearby landmarks
Related Ads to nearby options that directly support the advertised business. I.E. resort sites are likely to show ads for lodging and travel nearby.

While some users appear to be feeling let down by Google for eliminating this advertising option, others are not so sure that they truly benefitted from it in relation to its cost per month of $25 USD to maintain.

Success Stories More Localized

Google had previously provided a video extolling all of the virtues, benefits, and advertising opportunities within their Tag system. Users, most especially those who live in extremely urban areas report that in a very competitive local war with other businesses offering the same services, Google Tags has helped to direct those most locally to their business once users locate their Google Tag on the map.

Why are Google Tags Going Extinct?

Google execs cite the extinction of Tags due in large part to the fact that it was mostly an advertising experiment to begin with. Back in September 2010, it was reported that Google was aggressively pushing their Tag system for advertising. However, in October, they then pulled their ability to utilize the website URL tag option, which suddenly rendered the system a lot less useful. So, in this past week, Google has announced an end to the Tag system.

Google developers then stated ,”We’ve made a decision to shift our efforts toward other present and future product offerings for local businesses, and will be discontinuing this trial. To that end, we’ve now halted new signups and will be working with existing participating businesses over the coming weeks to help them meet their marketing needs with other Google products where possible.”

They also acknowledged that they had learned quite a bit from the Tags trial and that knowledge and understanding would be carried on with them as they strive to find the most accommodating ways to server their users as well as small and local businesses.

We’ve learned a lot from our Tags trial and will take that knowledge into account as we continue to find the best ways to serve users and local businesses alike. Lastly, we want to thank all of the businesses that were part of our Tags trial, and we hope we can meet their advertising needs with one of our existing products.

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