How To Claim Google Business Listings: A Digital Age Cinderella Story
This fairy tale takes place in land not too far away and not all that long ago. It may seem hard to reconcile claiming Google business listings and a fairy tale, but just keep reading. Cinderella (Ella for short), was a poor girl who lived with her cruel stepmother and terrible stepsisters. She had no beautiful dress to wear to the fancy dress ball, where she hoped to meet the Prince. Seeing her distress, Ella’s Fairy Godmother entered the scene, who dressed Cinderella in a beautiful dress and, of course, the quintessential glass slippers. Ella had an amazing time at the ball until, as fate would have it, she heard the clock strike midnight. She ran from the prince before she could be outed as a pumpkin riding vagrant.
How Can Google Business Listings Help Prince Charming!?
The prince was unable to resist Ella’s charm and fell madly in love with her (of course, you know the story). He grabbed the glass slipper she left behind in such a flury. Because our Prince was living in the digital age, he did not need to send his ministers to go door to door looking for her, slipping the glass slipper onto every maiden in the county (I’ve always had trouble with that part of the old story, anyway. How many women have the same size feet and why could he never recognize her face? No time to delve here, though). Instead, he took his phone out, and immediately Googled The Fairy Godmother Boutique Store, where the glass slipper came from. Just like that, Fairy Godmother was found in Google’s Snack Pack, because of her good listings management. Fairy Godmother took care of her Google business listings, and it paid off. Prince Charming found Cinderella with only a few clicks! The rest is just fairy tale history.
As you already know, Google is the most popular search engine of all time. Claiming Google business listings is absolutely necessary for a business' success. When customers look up a business name, Google brings up the Google+ listings. When doing a local category search, Google now has a list of three businesses displayed above all the organic search results. This is referred to as the Snack Pack, and it’s essential you teach your clients how to get their business in here.
Claiming a company's Google business listings page allows you to update all of the business information correctly, use Google as a social media site and most importantly, provides the ability to respond to customer reviews. An optimized Google+ page helps improve the local search rank of a business.
How to Claim Google+ Listings
Google+ isn't simply another social media site. Claiming a Google+ is quite simple.
- Visit www.google.com/business
- Click on “Get on Google”
- Search for the business
- If the business already exists, simply click on “Manage This Page”
- If the business does not exist, click “Add your business” and follow the steps
Once you verify the page, you will then be able to update and manage this Google+ listing. Easier than finding a needle in a haystack, a princess with a glass slipper.
Don’t miss out, claim your Google business listings today, and make sure your local business clients know how to claim their listing. This truly could be their business’ happily ever after!