Secrets to Claim a Google Places Listing and All the Benefits That Come with Google Places

Claim Your Google Places Listing!  There are many benefits to your business, but most are only available if you make it your own.  If you have been in business for a year or so, you may already be listed.  Potentially, your business information may not even be correct.  Certainly the information will not be as good as you can make it.  Importantly, claiming your Google Places Listing is known to be one of the most important factors in determining how you rank on Google Places compared to your competitors. 
First you need a Google Account.  You can go to Google.com or to Gmail.com and set up an account.  Once you have opened an account go to local.Google.com.  This will take you to a page that looks like this.

To the left hand side you will notice it says "Put your business on Google Maps."   When you click on this link you will get this page.

If this is a brand new account with Google, you won't have all these things, but you will at least have the choice of Google Places.  Click on that link and you will go to a page that looks like this:

Add in your company name address and the rest of the items asked for.  When you finish this section, you will see a continue bar, click on that and you will be given some choices.  If your company is already listed, Google will offer you the chance to claim the existing listing.  If you see a good listing or even one that is close to correct, go ahead and choose that and continue.

If none of the listings they show is you or if there is no options at all, then just follow the instructions.  No matter what you do, when you continue, you will now be back to the form and there will be more things to fill out.  Finish filling out the form using all the best practices shown on this blog.  At the bottom of the page you will be asked to submit.

Usually after submitting, you will get a choice of confirming your listing by phone or by post card.   For most folks, I would suggest that you just take the phone call, get the code and enter it into the box as shown.  Then you are done claiming the listing.