Increase your Local Traffic with Google+ Local

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Standard Marketing - ebook - Increase your local traffic with Google+ local Page 1
Standard Marketing - ebook
Increase your
local traffic
with Google+
local

Table of contents
Introduction - 3
1. What is Google+ Local - 4
2. Checklist for an Optimized Google+ Local Profile - 8
3. Create Your Google Account - 12
4. Setting up your Personal Profile - 15
5. Set up a Business Page - 19
6. Optimizing your Business Page - 27
7. How Standard Marketing can Help - 31

Introduction
Google knows that most of the business in the world is conducted by small, local businesses.
That’s why they created Google+ Local, to get small local businesses using and relying on
Google to help their business. And they’ve done a pretty good job. Google+ Local helps
people find what they’re looking for within their own neighborhood.
As well, Google has tied Google+ Local into Google Maps, which people searching locally
often use. They’ve also tied Google+ Local into Google+ Circles so people using Google Maps
can include search options that display results rated either by top reviewers or by people
within their Google+ Circles.
This means one thing – you need to be on
Google+ and more importantly you need
Google+ Local.
That’s why we put this E-Book together, to help
local business owners connect with people
searching for your business locally. With our
easy-to-learn steps you’ll be able to setup a
Google+ Profile, optimize your Business Page,
and get your business found on local search –
so let’s get started!
“
”
In recent studies Google found that 82% of mobile shoppers search when
they’re inside a store to influence their purchase decision” and “28% of
mobile searches result in convers ions.” – Search Engine Land

1. What is Google+ Local

Google is the largest search engine in the world
with over five hundred million searches a day. They
wanted a share of the business in the social media
industry, and they did that with Google+. Google+
is now the world’s second largest social network
with over 500 million users, including 343 million
active monthly users. Evolving from Google Places,
Google+ made getting involved with your local
community a whole lot easier with your very own
Local Tab.
Clicking the Local tab allows the user to review
local businesses, view local businesses that their
friends reviewed, or even to discover a new spot
for lunch close by. It’s imperative that businesses
set up and optimize their Google+ profile so they
can attract and interest these potential buyers.
What was once known as Google Places has
become Google+ Local. If you created a Google
Places profile before May 30th, 2012, you will want
to revisit your profile to make sure it’s still the best
it can be.

Google Reviews:
The reviews written about a
business are valuable pieces of
information that most searchers
depend on to help them make a
buying decision. While it’s nice
to have the more reviews than
your immediate competitors
it’s also recommended that you
don’t go offering incentives in
exchange for reviews. That’s not
to say you can’t ask for reviews.
We recommend business owners
find a personable and friendly
approach for asking customers to
review your services on Google+.

Google+ Circles:
Circles are easily defined as the groups of people that interact with you through Google+. You can have
Circles for Friends, Family, Acquaintances, Following and you can even customize your circles. When
someone in one of your circles makes a review or recommendation about a business through Google+,
this review becomes visible to you and the people in their circles. So putting time into building your
circles with relevant and nearby people can be a great way to get free advertising.

2. Checklist for an
Optimized Google+ Local Profile

David Mihm, from Moz
published the Local Search
Ranking Factors Survey for
2013. This pie chart will help
you understand what to
include in your Google+ Local
profile to ensure it can be
found in search.
August 7th, 2013 - Posted by David Mihm
Overall Ranking Factors
Place Page Signals (Categories, Keyword in Business Title, Proximity, etc.)
External Loc. Signals (IYP/aggregator NAP consistency, Citation Volume, etc.)
On-Page Signals (Presence of NAP, Keywords in Titles, Domain authority, etc.)
Link Signals (Inbound ancher text, Linking domain authority, Linking domain quatity, etc.)
Review Signals (Rreview quantity, Review volicity, Review diversity, etc.)
Social Signals (Google+ authority, Facebook likes, Twitter followers, etc.)
Behavioral/Mob. Signals (Clickthrough rate, Mobile clicks to call, Check-ins, Offers, etc.)
Personalization

Place Page
Signals
This refers to the
accuracy and level of
description of your
categories.
External
Location
Signals
This refers to your list-
ing on the Internet Yel-
low Pages if you have
One - Name, Address,
Phone consistency, and
Citation volume. Google
loves consistency so re-
member that it’s impor-
tant to have your Name,
Address, Phone number
(NAP) consistent wher-
ever your business is
mentioned online. It also
helps to submit your busi-
ness to a few directories.
We’ll provide some good
suggestions later in this
Ebook.
On-Page
Signals
Link Signals
This refers to the
presence of your Name,
Address, Phone number.
Are they obviously
displayed?On-page
signals also include
on-page search engine
optimization tactics, high
domain authority, etc.
This refers to the quality
and quantity of links on
other websites that are
pointing to your website.
Aim for links on websites
that are authoritative,
relevant to your business,
and trustworthy.

Review
Signals
This refers to the amount
of reviews you receive,
whether the reviews are
good or bad, and the
diversity of platforms
where you have reviews
e.g. Yelp, Google reviews,
Facebook reviews, etc.
Social
Signals
This refers to the level
of engagement that
your content warrants
across all of your social
networks. The more
people are talking about
your content the better.
Great content leads to a
better signal to Google
that your website serves
higher rankings.
Behavioral and
Mobile Signals
Personalization
This refers to the
behavior of your
audience while
they’re considering
your marketing
communications. Do
you need to add more
enticement to increase
click-throughs, check-
ins, or interest in special
offers?
This refers to
personalizing your
Google+ accounts
– making sure all your
profile fields are filled
in. This includes the
information on both your
personal page and your
business page.

3. Create Your Google Account

If you don’t have a Gmail or Google account it’s easy to get started with
the steps provided below. Simply go to http://www.gmail.com/ and
click Create an Account in the upper right hand corner. Once you click
it you’ll be prompted to choose your username and provide personal
information.
Once you’ve completed
entering your information and
choosing your username and
password you’ll need to verify
your account with a verification
number. Google will either
send a text message or an
automated phone call to relay
the verification code.

Next you’ll be allowed to upload a picture and start building your account.
Click on View profile and begin adding friends, personal information, pictures, links and anything
else that you feel best portrays your personality.
They will provide you with a 6 digit verification code. Once
you receive the code, enter it to validate that you are not a
bot.

4. Setting up your Personal Profile

After you set up your
Gmail account, you
will be prompted to
connect with friends.
Add photo and click
upgrade, it will then
ask you to add people
you know. In the third
phase it will ask you
for some personal
information and once
you’ve filled it out
click Finish.

Once you’ve finished you’ll be directed to your Dashboard where you can click on the downward arrow
to the right of your avatar in the top right hand corner and View Profile.
Click on About and start editing the personal information and remember that it’s better to fill out more
than less. Start with filling out information on Story, Education, Work, Basic Information, Links, Contact
Information and start adding People to your circles.
Adding people to your circles is a great way to expand your network and visibility – try to add people
that are relevant to your industry or people that you feel fit into your target market.

A good way to get started with adding people is to join a
community – whether it be a community based around your
current city or a community based around your industry, it’s a
great way to connect and build relationships. Go to the top left
hand corner and click on the G+ and then click on Communities to
search for the Community that best matches your interests.
Once you have chosen a community to join you will need to turn
notifications on or off – in this case I’ve turned them off so I don’t
receive an abundance of notifications. On the left hand column
you will see a box that contains pictures of all the members.
You can click on See All and once you can see all the members
hover your cursor over the avatars and click on Follow. You will
then be able to choose what circle you want to add the person to.

5. Set up a Business Page

Before you jump into it, you may want to do a search for your
business to ensure that your business doesn’t already have a page
that a user created. Once you confirm there is no existing page,
you can click on the Home Icon in the top left hand corner and
click on Pages.
Information you need:
Make sure everything is consistent. Google likes everything
exactly the same (copy/paste). It’s good to also represent your
business in the exact same way that it appears offline.
Use the exact same street address formatted in exactly the same
way as you have it displayed on your website, either in the footer
section of every page, or perhaps just on the Contact Us page.
Business Name
Business Address
Local Business Phone Number
Website URL
Hours of Operation
Areas Served.

Once there, select Create a New Page and it will ask you what kind of page you want to set up. I
selected Local Business or Place. You will have to enter the business’ phone number, location and
category before continuing. Once you have your page, we recommend uploading a nice profile picture
and backdrop picture that captures the brand essence – if your business caters to the young and
affluent – portray that sort of lifestyle including people from the specified demographic.
Once you’ve made some initial design
decisions on your business page click on
the About tab again at the top of the page
and select Edit business Information. Here
you can edit your address, phone number,
website, email address, hours of operation,
and business description.
Write a compelling description in 200
characters with 2 or 3 key phrases –
explaining what you do, how you can
help people and why you’re in business.
Make sure everything is filled out, Google
will rank you better if you provide a
stronger user experience (photos, videos,
promotions)

At the top of the screen you will see a progress bar that represents the completeness of your profile
– in order to achieve 100% you need to request a PIN to verify your business’ location. Before you
request you PIN double check that the address on your website and the address in Google+ Profile is
an exact match.
Once you request your PIN, you will normally have to wait a couple of weeks to get your Post card in
the mail - don’t be surprised if it takes up to 4 weeks. The post card will look something like this:

Once you have received your PIN in the mail, you will
have to enter it to complete your profile by clicking
Edit Business Information on your About Page. Once
you see this page shown on the left, click Enter Pin
and your business location will be verified by Google.

Go back to the About page and scroll down to Links and Contact Info and you’ll see a Link Website
option beside your website’s URL. You can either send the information to your webmaster or you can
put the code in your website directly. You may have to seek out technical help for placing your website
verification code in your website.
To verify email you simply click verify beside your email address on your profile, check your email and
click verify in the email Google sent you.
Verifying your Website and email

Tips
Keep in mind that this needs to be a physical address, not a P.O.
Box.
One listing per physical business location – even if you operate
in a larger service area. Don’t worry - you can designate your
service areas separately.
Do you have multiple specialties in the same office? Create
a listing for your offices and a separate listing for each
practitioner. According to Google’s standards this should not
appear manipulative.
Remember, this is about trust and consistency across many
different information sources, if your address is somewhat rural
or miles away from a city’s “epicenter” zip code you might be
tempted to list just the city name. We recommend against it.
Multiple business locations? Create a listing for each one.
Provide a phone number that connects to your individual
business location as directly as possible, and provide one
website that represents your individual business location.
Your phone number SHOULD be a local number for maximum
impact.
Also know that you should not select the “verify listing by
phone” option if you use an automated phone system. Google’s
system can only provide your verification PIN to a live person or
voice mail.

Citations – Make sure all mentions of your website are consistent with current and correct information
on URL, address, phone number, spelling, etc.
Accruing citations is a great way to stay ahead of your competitors. It’s great for SEO and they send
signals to search engines – so the higher the quality of these citations the better. Especially for the
smaller markets, or less competitive industries, a handful of high quality citations may be all a business
needs to appear like the best among their competitors.
Here is a list of websites that will help you build
some citations:
• Foursquare.com
• GetFave.com
• Google.com/business/placesforbusiness
• Local.yahoo.com
• Local.com
• WhitePages.com
• YellowPages.com
• Yelp.com
• YellowBot.com
• Citysearch.com
• Dexknows.com
• Hotfrog.com
Thanks to Timothy Carter for sharing this.

6. Optimizing your Business Page

One of the changes that Google+ Local brings that
Places didn’t is that your Local page will be indexed and
will actually show up in Google’s search result pages.
This means that including keywords in your profile
will have significant SEO benefits for increasing your
business’ visibility. We will suggest where to place
keywords in the Tips section below.
Make sure you complete your profile. Nobody likes
going to a business page and seeing no activity for a
year, little to any information provided, no reviews,
no pictures, etc. The more consistent you are with
sharing information and media, the more the visitor will
understand about your business and the quicker they’ll
realize if your business is a good fit for them.
Build your Circles with former, prospective and current
clients. This can actually help to generate some reviews
and +1’s for your business because once you add them
they will be notified and become reminded of your
excellent service.

I’m sure you’ve heard “Content is King.” Post engaging and relative content so that your Circles can
appreciate your posts as this will encourage more followers. Great visuals go a long way with Google+
and are more likely to be shared compared to a plain text post.
Helpful Optimization Tips:
Profile name: ensure your name is consistent
with your website, blog and other social
profiles. It’s suggested that you use the same
background image as on your other social
profiles to create a branded feel but Google+’
background is much larger so feel free to be
creative.
Story: Make sure your Story is public and
remember when you share something or post
the audience can be individually selected.
Tagline: Use less than 10 words and try to use
a suggested keyword.
Introduction: Make sure it’s less than 110
characters so it will fit in Google’s Search.
Bragging Rights: Share recent successes like
home, property, or condo sales and try to
mention your blog or website.
Profile Pic
try to use a 250px by
250px professional
headshot.
Tip: Your photos will
show up in Search
Results so, keep it
safe for work and
professional.

Contact Info: List your email and phone number as well as your
Postal Code for location.
People: Enable “show people who have added you to circles”
Occupation: Sum up your career in a sentence or two.
Skills: Note key work skills. Tip: Use less than 5 keyworded skills
to increase chances of being found through search.
Employment: Showcase your employment highlights in 2 or 3
sentences for each job.
Other Profiles: Link to all of your social accounts, blogs, and
websites. Tip: Use keyworded anchor text to describe your links.
Contributor to: make sure to link to your blog’s “About Me” page
to authenticate your Google.
Authorship: Google Authorship will ensure your
picture is displayed in Search Results beside the
description of your blog post or website. Try to
match your Google+ name with your Blog and
posts – you can do this by adding By: yourname
or Author: yourname to your blog posts.

7. How Standard Marketing can Help

The above process can take as little as an hour but usually
requires longer if you are looking for an optimized and
well established profile. This could become extremely
beneficial to your business and we can help you build your
personal and business profiles; verify your website, email,
business location, accrue citations, reviews and much
more.
We could help you set up and maintain your very own
Google Authorship which allows your picture to be
displayed beside your website in Google’s search result
pages. This adds an incredible amount of leverage over
your competitors as it adds a sense of familiarity and
personification to your website.
For additional information how Google+ can help your
business visit our website:

Discover the missed opportunity with a fully optimized
and well established Google+ Local account. There are
hundreds of local searches happening in your very own
neighborhood, everyday! Don’t let your competitors get all
the attention – remember what we said about how a few
high quality citations can do for your visibility.
We specialize in Search Engine Optimization but we are
also Social Media experts, especially when it comes to
building optimized Google+ accounts including Google+
Local. An optimized and well established Google+ account
is vital to your SEO as Google+ has a large impact on how
Google ranks you in its search results and how searchers
find you.
Let’s talk about how Google+ Local can help your
business grow.
604 722-9375604 722-9375
Optimize Your Google Local
info@standardmarketing.cainfo@standardmarketing.ca

By Anthony Baisi
Anthony Baisi manages social media & customer
relations at Standard Marketing. He’s also
responsible for developing clients’ content strategy
and carrying out their Search Engine Optimization.
He strategizes each client’s content to address the
needs of their target audience while establishing a
professional and consistent persona for the brand.
He’s an important part of our marketing strategy
team.
Written by Anthony Baisi
Follow me on Twitter
@anthonybaisi

Increase your Local Traffic with Google+ Local

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Increase your Local Traffic with Google+ Local