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. 

Google Places - Numerous Professionals with One Street Address Can Have Multiple Places Listings

Freshly picked from a new Blumenthal blog on Understanding Google Maps and Local Search

In an interview with Google

I decided however, to get Google’s “official” opinion on the matter so I asked Ari Bezman, Google’s product manager for the Local Business CenterGoogle Places as to how Google thought this situation should be handled.

MB: What is Google’s recommended practice in regards to handling the multiple listings that most professionals and clinics end up with?
Should we endeavor to have one listing for the practice Place and merge all of the doctors (or whatever) into the one listing or should a we endeavor to keep the individual doctor listings?
Ari: Each doctor (or other independent professional) should have their own listing, with one more listing for the clinic.
MB: A related question is that often the Doctor listings come into Google with a format of Dr Name: Speciality . Is that the preferred business name or is just the Dr. Name preferred?
Ari: The name should just be Dr. Name. The specialty should be in the category and/or the description.

 This was followed with a lively discussion on what this means.  Does this only apply to professionals?  Should it?  What happens to businesses with widely different product categories or services?  For the moment, we only have it from the horses mouth, professionals that operate out of a single business location can list themselves one at a time.  For the issue of naming each professional, I noted that Ari said "should be."  I doubt that's true.  I believe that the Doctor Could surely add a specialty, but I would stop at Dr. Jones Heart Surgeon unless I had a DBA for a longer name.

Google Places: The Yellow Pages of The Present and Future

Lest anyone think I dost protest too much, check out the following post.  Google has to the position, the product, and the power to be the king of local search.  Like the 2010 Lakers, it is there's to lose.

Is Google Becoming the New Ma Bell?

By Gregg Stewart, ClickZ, May 6, 2010

Sponsored by Microsoft Mobile Advertising

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First off, some younger readers might not get the comparison. The colloquial term Ma Bell ("Mother Bell") was used to refer to the conglomerate that held a complete monopoly over all telephone service in most areas of the United States. In effect, they were the utility that brought communication to U.S. consumers and businesses. Fast forward about 100 years and we see a similar "utility" emerging in Google as it moves further to embed its product set and services in the minds of both consumers and businesses.

  

Nowhere is this pattern more evident than in the realm of local search. With over 65 percent marketshare of search (according to comScore) and nearly $12 billion in annualized revenue from U.S. search (according to Google's Q1 2010 Quarterly Earnings Summary); I think we can all agree that Google is a successful business. Interestingly though, all of this success has come from leveraging a relatively small base of advertisers, around 1 million U.S. advertisers (as of 2009). Considering there were over 29 million businesses in the U.S. in 2008 (according to SBA), it stands to reason that Google has an opportunity to dominate the local search marketplace.
Let's consider the facts; one in five searches on Google is now explicitly location-specific. Recently, Google has taken some steps to enhance the local-search process on its site as well as the local content itself. Most notably, these steps include:

• The revamp of the Local Business Center - now called Google Places
• Google Maps allowing service-based businesses to target service areas
• The enhanced localization of Google Suggest