For most local business owners, the term hashtag isn't new to them by any means; yet if you asked many local business owners, they might not be able to tell you exactly what a hashtag is or how to use them. But the truth of the matter is they can really help boost your business in a variety of ways.

Per Twitters help page, a hashtag is defined as:

The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.

In a nutshell, hashtags can be used by small businesses to promote, get found, spread messages, research the competition, and more to boost their local business, research and educate themselves about current industry trends, and generate buzz to build brand identity and expert status throughout the Internet.

• Steal This Idea: Google Reader & Twitter Hashtags

How can you maximize the use of hashtags?

1. Read up on how to use hashtags on Twitter. Twitter has some great information about how to use hashtags in their online help center. There's also some great info about hashtags and best practices on the Twitter Fan Wiki page.
2. Use relevant keywords and find out what hashtags are being searched on so you can use them for your local business. Hashtag.org is a great resource to find out what some of the current trends are and to identify if your hashtag is currently being searched on. Use keywords that are relevant for your local business in hashtags for an added boost in findability for your business.
3. Use hashtags for promotions and customer engagement. There are some great success stories for businesses around the use of hashtags in an article on a Fox Business News website. For example, a non-profit farmer group, the Vineyard Team, uses Twitter with great success to spread the word about events for their SIP the Good Life division, a division created to spread the word about their sustainable programs beyond farmers.
4. Make sure you have a public account. When you have a public account, if you Tweet using a hashtag, then anyone who does a search for that hashtag could find your tweet. With a private account, only your followers can find you.

What should you avoid when using hashtags?

1. Don't try to spam with hashtags or work the system. You don't want to distract readers from overdoing it with hashtags, nor do you want to turn them away by spamming. Its recommended to use no more than 3 hashtags per Tweet.
2. Don't use irrelevant hashtags. Again, stick to relevant hashtags for your business. You don't want to mislead your readers or confuse them with irrelevant hashtags.

Using hashtags can help you promote your business and get found online, which means increased leads and sales for your local business. Do your own research and create a game plan to optimize hashtags and Twitter for your small business today.

Also:

• How to Showcase Your Expertise on Social Sites
• HOW TO: Still Use Twitter Search to Track Your Brand Mentions via RSS
• Allow Tweeters to Lock Hashtags

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Defining Hashtags for Local Business

At this point, you've read the great posts in SEP about getting started with local optimization. You've found your business on the major sites like Google, Yelp, Bing, and Yahoo and gone through the process of claiming, verifying, adding photos and categories, and more. Now that you've gotten your feet wet in the ocean of local optimization, its time to dive in.

There are a vast amount of opportunities for local businesses out there on the web. Claiming your listings on the search engines is just the first step. Your next step is up to you, but I recommend the following:

1. Get Your Social Media Right
   The worlds of local and social are merging. This is indicative from Yelp reviews showing up in (and possibly impacting) search engine rankings. The same goes for tweets, Facebook likes and shares, and Google plus ones. Many of your local profiles will allow links to your social profiles, and vice versa. Create and optimize your social channels to match your local profiles, which will hopefully entice searchers who find your local business to talk about it, share it, etc.

   12-Step Social Media Guide: Put your Local Business on the Map

2. Find More Directories
   Just because your business listing is looking great on Google, Bing, and Yelp, it doesn't mean your work is done. Search Engines pull information from sites called data providers; sites like Insider Pages, City Search, Mojo Pages, Merchant Circle, and so many more. There are great lists out there for the top free directories to submit your business to. The goal is to have your business accurately represented on as many of these sites as possible. Your NAP (name, address, phone number) should be exactly the same, down to the character (including punctuation and street abbreviations). Google and Bing will pull information from these sites each time an inquiry is made, and if the info matches your Local Listing, it helps build the authority of these returns. There are so many of these sites out there, that your work is never really done. Happy Hunting!

   Link Building with Directory Submissions

3. Keep Up With It
   Your site is confirmed and has a place on a local data provider. However, some of these sites go through updates that will change your info, and again, you want everything to be accurate. Start a spreadsheet of each directory you submit to, complete with login info and the last time you logged in and updated. This will help you keep track of what's been done and what needs to be done. Google Places is the perfect example of the importance of this. Not a few months back, one of my clients got an email that Google would be making changes to their Places Page in an effort to keep the most updated information featured. If my client did not manually log in and override the changes, certain photos and information that we had previously entered would be changed. It was a simple fix, but it was still good to log-in and make sure everything was set. Data sites like Yelp allow for customers to suggest changes too, so you'll want to make sure people outside of your business aren't submitting incorrect info.

   Think Test Track : The Improvement Framework

The point is, like search engine optimization is an on-going, ever changing process; so is your local optimization campaign. The process of seek, submit, optimize, update, and repeat is on-going and time consuming. But like all else in SEO, if you put the time in and take advantage of all of the resources for local businesses out there, it will yield your goal results.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

So You Did Local SEO. Now What?

One of the biggest steps in the "life" of a small business is changing their office address. It is equally important for their online presence as it is offline. Google, as the local search leader, likes to go very harsh on businesses deciding to change their core information (name, address, phone number – NAP). If you do not follow a very specific timeline and methodology you could end up in a situation like this. Of course, there are ways to deal with duplicates, but who wants to pass through this hassle! So, where should you start?

Lisa Barone compiled a great list of places you must change your address. These include off- and online properties. As this article talks about the Internet perspective of the problem, I focus on the "local search footprint" (as per Ms. Barone).

You should start with a research of your business' online presence. There are three major tools I've been using that have helped me tremendously:

• Whitespark's Local Citation Finder (my write up on the tool)
• Yext's Local Search Scorecard (my write up on the tool)
• David Mihm's Getlisted.org (wow, I still haven't written anything on that tool?!)

Oh, did I mention all those (currently) have free versions?

Here is how I use them:

1. I first roll Yext's tool to find the listings on all the major directories (it actually tells me much more than I could ask for, but that's a separate topic). I copy the links to those in an Excel file and go on.

2. Then I go to Whitespark's citation finder, and… well, I find citations. Note that to do that, you would need to use the "Search by Phone Number" feature. And if your phone number and business name are generally inconsistent, I guess you would first need some professional help.

I copy the links to the citations that this tool finds, too.

3. I make a very similar thing using Getlisted.org. What it adds to the first two tools is information about the business information available on Bing, InfoUSA (as known publicly), and Localeze. After I copy these links, I'm ready to start with the brute work.

I change the address on all the directories. If you hired previously someone to list you on all these, and you forgot to ask them about the log in credentials, it might be a good idea to do that before you start with this step. It is very important that you finish this task at the shortest possible time. Otherwise Google might get confused (did I hear ultra-smart, super sophisticated algorithm?) and decide to create a duplicate, or right out mix your business information with outdated one.

After you've done all the changing on all the third-party business directories, you should finally change your address on your website and your Google Places listing. If you do not want to wait "2-3 weeks" for the change to happen, I'd suggest you take my third advice from here.

And that's it! Easy. And can you imagine you and me are doing all that simply because Google's Places cluster system is too "smart"?

Related:

• Using Semantic Markup To Strengthen Your Local SEO Efforts
• Why Google Local Listings Merge and How to Unmerge Listings
• Google Local Listings 3 Essential Tips for Success!

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

A Timeline for Updating Your Business Address Online

"All things being equal ", goes the old adage, people like to do business with people they like. But, the caveat is, they've got to find you first. So, if you're finding yourself competing with a growing number of businesses for customers in and out of your local market, let's take a quick look at a few simple things you can do to boost your presence in search.

I think you'll find my suggestions surprisingly simple, hardly time-consuming, and enlightening in the sense that by doing them, you'll actually grow to understand your marketplace infinitely better than you would if you did not optimize your site for local search.

Here are my top four methods for optimizing your business website for local search:

1. Blog
2. Google *everything*
3. Twitter
4. Metadata and Backlinks

Own Your Market: Create Locally Spun Content Prospects Love To Read

Blogging for better search engine ranking has, no doubt, been beaten to death. But that's only because it's true, it works, and so many businesses still don't get it. The ones who do, are winning at local search.

So, let's say you're a business with locations in three different cities, one way to start boosting your local SEO efforts is to simply inject your blog writing with things happening locally. This can be events that cater to your business audience, things you're business is supporting or working on, or even commentary about what's happening around the office. One business I know in Seattle maintains a blog that frequently references what its staffers have done around the city (favorite coffee joints, humanitarian work, etc.) they also stick this sort of thing in the bios of employees, further adding to the content's local value.

Essentially, in a nutshell, think of every way possible to include the location of your city in the content of your website. Search engines still love "real" content "real" sentences, that tell a real story. Marketing-speak often doesn't make the cut, while a conversational tone does, and that's where once again, a blog wins. THINK about where you live, what you do there, and write about it. Even if you do it in passing, it serves to help you. Here's an example you could write: "Last week at our downtown Seattle office, we held a content creation seminar for clients in the legal industry." See what's happening here? We could have easily said, "Last week at our office, we held a seminar." In doing so, however, we would have lost three superior search phrases that would help us win positioning in the search engines. If I lived in Seattle and wanted to find a company that offered a free content creation seminar in downtown Seattle, chances are high, this phrase would pop in my results. So please blog. You might hate every minute of it, but your bottom line will thank you. Heck, hire someone like me to do it for you if you don't have the time!

Google *everything*

Google is still the King when it comes to search, and since it is always looking for new ways to put more money in the company coffers, they keep creating products directly tied to bringing in more business for its advertisers as well – that's you! Read up on what's new at Google as often as you can, and at the very least, watch the Google Local and Google Business space for all sorts of valuable updates that can win you traffic. Also, it goes without saying that some of the best resources on how to win at Google search, are, well within Google's own help sections, so spend some time kicking the tires over there, and learn, learn, learn. Oh, and don't forget YouTube LOTS of local search opportunities going on there!

Twitter

Love it or hate it, Twitter, scores big-time in search. Tweet about your business, what you're doing locally, and watch your results in search improve. Sometimes overnight. Be sure to mention your city of business in your Twitter profile as well. This helps other users find you, list you and follow you, so it's key. Of course, don't forget to link to your site as well. Don't forget to link to content on your site / blog.

Metadata and Backlinks

Ah, metadata, how we chastise thee hooey. I still love metadata, even though it's often in and out of vogue. One day you need to put this tag in there, the next day you don't. Who can keep track of it all!? My rule of thumb is if Matt Cutts doesn't say it will "hurt" you, then keep putting as much local metadata as you can squeeze in don't forget the most important: The Title tag. I cannot tell you how many websites I see with no title tag whatsoever. This is sinful, really. If you want to really spruce up your local search wins, be sure to put the city you want to highlight somewhere in this tag as well. Oh, and don't forget you can change that title tag for each page of your site, and if you're really fancy, you can even work in some dynamic title tag content as well!

Backlinks? These are simple, really, and my key advice to clients I write for is be sure to have the link "say" what someone using a search engine would "ask"? So, for example, if you're a custom cabinet maker in Indianapolis, create links that use the phrase "custom cabinet maker in Indianapolis" as you write. A full sentence might look like this: If you're looking for a "custom cabinet maker in Indianapolis" (quotes indicate where the link is), then look no further than John J. Carpenter who has been crafting fine cabinetry for the Indianapolis area for 15 years. Also take note of the two uses of Indianapolis. Don't be afraid to get specific with your writing, and avoid pronouns like the plague!

And that's it! Do these things regularly, and you'll be a local superstar in no time, and like I mentioned, just thinking about each one of these items will have you understanding your market, how to appeal to it, and how to close business in it, more than ever before.

Happy Hunting!

Doc Kane is the founder of Roscommon, a communications and research firm that helps companies tell their story online and in print by creating high-value custom content. Doc is also an archival film researcher, and recently wrapped research for the History Channel's six hour "Vietnam in HD" film.

Read more about local SEO:

• Simple Steps To Improve Local Search Marketing
• Keeping Control of your Local SEO Assets
• Using Semantic Markup To Strengthen Your Local SEO Efforts

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Go Roman! To Win At Local Search, Do What's Natural: Act Like A Local

The internet enables you to get in front of many people worldwide, but when you are just like many small local businesses or companies, world domination isn't actually a useful goal. Targeting the people who may use your services or buy your products is the main goal. You want to do everything you can to get your site in a top ranked position but it is really only important in your local business area. Fortunatly, there are a lot of great things that can be done in order to get targeted placement. From on-page optimization to linking to social media, here is a guide of how to optimize your webpage for local searches so that you can dominate the local SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

Why optimize your website for local Internet Search? See The Numbers:

• Almost 3 million search queries include local search phrases each month
• 70% searches make use of local search to discover offline companies
• 20% Google's queries are usually for local details

How to optimize Your Site for Local Search

Blog, blog and the blog some more: Each new post is really a fresh index page for your website, a brand-new page where you can target regional key phrase representing a new possibility to get better search results. It is a new opportunity to attract people to your site and get them interested in what you offer. Research has shown that sites with blogs get more traffic and better search engine placement.

Write on complementary type of local services: Let's say you sell tools, speak about somebody in your town who sells screws. That creates good will with all local businesses that tell you about new clients, and maybe bring about inbound links later. You can also blog about your relationship with any local charities.

Optimize the five vital on-page Search engine optimization factors: It means the site name; title, header tags, URL, text, image alt text, and contents must be optimized with local keywords.

Target long-tail key phrase variants for your geographical region: It is possible to carry out long-tail key phrase's research in the keyword tool of Google. In your content frequently add your local area name with the keywords you are targeting.

Write concerning your local industry and news: Keep updating with posts about what is happening in your local as well as in your niche for interesting blog content. This alcso helps establish you as knowledgable in your industry. The ultimate goal is to become a go to source.

Mobile-optimize your website: Local internet search and mobile search work together. 40% Google map utilization is on mobile phones. Make it simple these people by making your website mobile friendly.

Optimizing Local Search With Offsite Tactics

Register your company with Google's places: Based on Google, you will find almost fifty million pages of Google's places and you can optimize your Places listing by adding more information about your company as well as photographs and even videos.

Submission to local sites: The more you submit your site to local business directories, the more chances you get to have inbound links. There are many local business directories and Google counts every time it sees your full busines address and phone in these directories and in will have an influence on how well you are placed in the search results.

Act like a celebrity: The greater the profile you have in your own community (each offline and online), the more individuals will speak about your business. When people mention your business online this often creates more links to your site and often sends new visitors. Write as a guest blogger, speak to other people positively inside your business, and also behave as an origin service provider for your local community.

Publish your articles upon social media marketing outlets, particularly Google+ business webpage: Google looks at a content material contributed on social media more importantly today than in the past. Now that Google+ offers business pages, search and social are usually much more strongly in-line.

Be on local review websites: 77% internet shoppers make use of reviews to create a buying choice. If the clients are searching for feedback on your business, make it simpler for them to discover how amazing you're by taking on your reputation upon on review websites. When people tell you they are happy with the products or services you provide, hand them a piece of paper with the links to review site on it and tell them the best way they can express their graditude is to go write a review.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Domination Of Local Search

But mobiles are increasingly used by your potential customers to find the products and services they want when they're on the move.

I recently attended a Google event in Manchester, where a lot of the focus was on mobile and local. Some of the key facts to come out of that included:

• 1 in 3 mobile searches have a local element to them
• 45% of consumers use a mobile while shopping, yet just 17% of UK businesses (not sure how this stacks up internationally?) have a mobile optimized website ( see also: do you need a mobile site)
• By 2022, mobile commerce will be worth 19 billion annually around the world.

Searching On The Go

Up to 1 in 5 of your website visitors could be mobile and this is growing incredibly quickly. And Google's statistic that a third of mobile searches have a local element to them confirms that users are using their mobiles to find what they want on the go.

Let's have a look at a couple of examples.

If I search on my mobile 'Hotels Manchester', then I see a couple of PPC ads, an organic listing and then maps. And more to the point, the Google Maps listings are all accompanied by click to call numbers. I don't even have to visit a website to convert to a call and potential reservation for one of these hotels.

Even if I take off the local element and search 'Italian Restaurants', I am again greeted by Maps. Google has permission to use my location and so can return results based on where I am to point me to my nearest Italian restaurants.

What Does It Mean For Local Businesses?

We know that a number of mobile searchers are likely to be looking for something around them. We also know that there's a good chance that Google will, for a local search, return Maps with click to call buttons. So what that means is that the approach to marketing local businesses to mobile searchers has to look beyond just the website. That, of course, doesn't mean to say you can overlook your own website.

Here's what I consider to be the bare minimum must haves for local businesses:

A claimed and verified, content rich Google Places listing with a telephone number! Get your happy customers to leave reviews too, because those stars in the SERPs could be the difference between someone clicking to call your number or your competitors number.

A mobile optimised website. Google doesn't always show Maps. We know that sometimes the search giant is guilty of showing Maps where they don't seem relevant and of failing to where they do. So you should have a website optimised for mobile and ensure your visibility through SEO for relevant search terms. If you present a website that cannot easily be viewed on a mobile device to your mobile users, there's a good chance they'll bounce right back off again. Don't just consider the design here, but consider too the type of content mobile users might want to see and how this could differ from your desktop users.

PPC ads, where appropriate. You can show up higher than the maps and the organic listings by getting into the coveted top 2 PPC spots. As mobile users are far less likely to scroll down there's an opportunity to be had here (particularly if you have a special offer on or an event to which you definitely want to drum up business) to pull in footfall from those searching for your products and services from right within your direct vicinity.

A comprehensive local SEO campaign based on enhancing both organic and Maps visibility.

• Continue: Basic Mobile Strategy For Any Small Business [No Problem]

It's Only Getting Bigger

Mobile is going nowhere. And Google knows it. Mobile users are also desktop users and vice versa. It isn't a completely different set of people searching from mobiles and these users have one habit that doesn't die when they turn their desktops off: They search in Google.

Google is catering well to mobile users and I feel there's a real opportunity for local businesses to reach an audience close to them in a way they have never previously been able to do.

• See also: Optimizing Your Google Places

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Mobile Must Haves for Local Businesses

Since 2009 the search results across the big three have become increasingly localized and personalized. Both regionalized queries and global queries will deliver localized results in a variety of different formats, but they are localized nonetheless. So when it comes to optimizing for and navigating the local search space, how is one to distinguish the difference between a search like "flowers" and a search like "flowers Boston?"

Identifying Searcher Intent

One of the first things search engines look at when it comes to localizing search results is searcher intent. Is the query a regional sensitive query that pertains to a specific geographic location, or is it more broad? If a search has clear localized intent then it will deliver localized results. Otherwise the search engines can use a number of factors to determine if they are dealing with a regional sensitive query or a global query by referencing:

• A users search history
• Aggregated data from other users
• The frequency a term is searched with the addition of a geographic location
• The frequency of clicks on localized results by the user
• The location information associated with the logged in user

If the factors cross referenced lead the search engine to believe that the search has possible localized intent it will deliver some form of localized results. I personally feel that the search engines are referencing aggregated data more than anything since localized searches appear to be showing up for more and more queries even if my personal intent isnt localized. Furthermore there are a large number of low volume localized terms that have no local results integrated.

Location, Location, Location

Once the search engines have identified whether or not your search has any sort of local intent it will deliver its results based on your location of search. For mobile search this data has the potential to be much more precise depending on your GPS settings. Another thing to consider, especially with Google, is the location your search results are set to. I personally run my location in Google as the United States, which gives me much different results for an otherwise localized search like "pizza" in comparison to when my search results are set to my hometown of Corona, CA.

Competing For Traffic In Localized Search Results

The local search game has changed greatly over the last couple of years. Large players who used to dominate for otherwise global queries have seen themselves nudged down in the SERPs thanks to localization, and in many cases there aren't a lot of ways to combat it. As Matt Cutts pointed out earlier this year in a webmaster help video on the topic of showing up in localized results when you're not a local business, … there's not really a way where if you're out of town, you can sort of show up (within our guidelines), and show up as a local business." So if you're a big fish from upstream trying to make it in the small pond, you're going to have to really assess your strategy to be successful.

When Google launched blended Places results in 2010 this was something my team and I at Plastic Surgery Studios recognized as a threat immediately. Our bread and butter in Google for our directories were terms like plastic surgeon or plastic surgery, and at the time we dominated the results. But after the introduction of blended results we were quickly pushed down the page by local doctors. To combat this we had to change our strategy. We began seeking out localized terms that were relevant to our site and our niche, but were not not dominated by localized search results. In doing so we were able to target and dominate a number of lesser searched local terms to make up for the losses of some of our larger global terms.

Another thing we considered were means of showing up in the top local search results indirectly. One way I proposed we do this was to become a citation source for local doctors featured on our directories. For at least one of our directories we began using semantic markup to strengthen our local SEO strategy, this game has changed a bit recently with Google killing off citation information, but there is still an opportunity to do this if you are a larger site that features reviews of local businesses since reviews still appear in Places instant previews and on Places pages.

On the other hand if you are a local business and youre trying to stand out amongst the competition there are a number of things you can do:

• Optimize your website for localized search terms
• Make sure your NAP information appears on your site
• Claim and optimize your local listings on the big three
• Submit your business to local citation sites

Remember, in the case of Google, blended results rely heavily on both strong on page SEO as well as local search ranking factors. So whether you rank for flowers or flowers Boston now is a better time than ever to reassess your strategy to make sure you are getting the most from your efforts and are being found where you want to be.

See also:

• Geo Targeted SEO: The Technical Review
• Using Semantic Markup To Strengthen Your Local SEO Efforts
• Simple Steps To Improve Local Search Marketing

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

How Search Engines Distinguish Between Regional Sensitive Queries and Global Queries (And How You Can Compete)

As a local business owner, you've probably felt the impact of consumer portals, review websites and deal of the day platforms. And with so many choices, managing your presence online is challenging. You've probably built a website and created a local profile, but you're still not bringing in enough profitable customers. What's more, customers move away, die or just stop buying.

You've got to maximize local search to replace these lost customers with new ones.

Follow these simple steps to improve your placement on local search:

First, log in to your Google Places account and triple-check your listing's information for accuracy. Scan for inconsistencies. The name of your business should match the legal name of your business, the address should maintain ironclad consistency with your phone company listings.

Second, snap a few photographs of the outside and inside of your location, and then upload into your Google Places account.

Third, search Blumenthal's category tool, and return to your Google Places account, listing your business in as many relevant categories as possible.

Finally, visit your website. Look in the footer or bottom section. If you don't have your business name, address and phone number here, edit the page to include it, or fire off an email to your Webmaster to get this done.

As a bonus, head over to infogroup's Express Update and claim and update your free business listing. This portal powers a significant number of other local search engines, so if the data's right here, you stand a good chance of it being propagated across local search.

Follow these steps and you'll be well on your way to success with local search.

Also read:

• Optimising Your Google Places
• Every Business Is A Local Business
• Using Semantic Markup To Strengthen Your Local SEO Efforts

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Simple Steps To Improve Local Search Marketing

Google Places (as part of Google Maps) has gradually turned into one of the most important online marketing tools for every small business around the globe. Google, however, seems to be blind for the great opportunity that the product provides for the company. The Places support team is very understaffed and spammers proliferate and flourish. The manpower and budget needed for improvement are not being invested. Therefore, people have to search for workarounds in order to solve their (often times) very urgent problems.

One of these problems is with duplicate listings popping up without any notice. Opinions on how to deal with it vary, but the truth is there are different types of duplicates and the ways to solve the issue are sometimes different. Below, I outline some tips on how to "treat" them.

Why Do Duplicate Listings Appear?

Google doesn't give a clear explanation. All they say on their Duplicate Listings help page is "There should only be one listing per business location, both in the Google Places account and in search results" – oh, thanks for telling me! Duplicates usually occur because of the way the Google Places system works. It is a cluster with information for many businesses. The ways Google gets this data are:

- directly via Google Places when the business owner creates a business listing
- via Google Map Maker (user-generated)
- via Google Maps (user-generated) and Google Places (user-generated)
- via data providers (for the US – InfoGroup, for Canada – YellowPages.ca, for Bulgaria – GoldenPages.bg, etc)
- via third-party trusted sources (Yahoo, Citysearch, Kudzu, Urbanspoon, Qype, Panoramio, Flickr)
- via third-party regular sources (business websites, local/niche business directories)

When Google gathers enough information, they create a cluster record for the business. Over time, additional information for this business comes to Google and it has to match it with the already existing one. If it fails – a duplicate is created.

How To Deal With A Duplicate?

If you've already spotted a duplicate you have to check a few things:

• 1) Is the information in the two listings identical or it differs?
• 2) Does one of the listings have more information than the other (i.e. one of them features simply business name, address and phone number)?
• 3) Are the CIDs the same or different (CID is a unique ID number assigned to each listing; you can see it when you click on the hyperlink image in the upper right corner of the Place page at the end of the link that shows up; here is an article by me on the Google Places page URL structure)

A) The listings are identical, one of the listings is full of information (pictures, videos, website, description), the other has only business name, address and phone number listed (CIDs differ).

This is the classical duplicate case. Google's cluster system failed to associate newcomer data with an already existing in their cluster one. What you need to do:

You have three options.

First option:

- Go to your listing and click on the hyperlink image in the upper right corner of the page
- Copy the link
- Go to the duplicate listing and click on "Report a problem" at the bottom
- Choose "Place has another listing" and in the comments box write something like "This listing is a duplicate of [link to the first listing here]. Please, merge them!"

The second option is:

- Go to the duplicate listing and click on "Business owner?" in the upper right corner
- Choose "Edit my listing"
- At the next page, do not change anything; simply scroll to the bottom and click "Submit"
- Google should provide you the option to verify by phone
- Choose "by phone" and after you verify the ownership over the listing, delete it from Google Maps

And the third option is:

- Go to Google Map Maker (it's already available in Canada too! as well as in 187 other countries and territories)
- In the search box type your business name and city
- When you find the duplicate listing click "Edit" under it and choose "Report this"
- In the pop up window choose "Duplicate exists" and in the Remarks box explain the problem

Each of these methods has positives and negatives. The first one is the recommended one by Google. However, according to their own words (and my personal experience) it takes "a few weeks" for it to be resolved. The second one is the recommended one by many specialists. The problem here is that if Google created a duplicate once, it will most probably create it again, therefore this is just a temporary solution. The third one is my favorite. It takes from a few hours to a few days for a Google Moderator (or a Trusted Reviewer) to check the report and approve it. Once approved, I haven't seen it reoccurring.

B) The Listings Are Both For The Same Business, But The Information Differs.

In this case you have to do the following:

- Find all the web pages online where your business information is outdated or wrong
- Fix/update it no matter it takes – if you have to, spam the webmasters with emails and/or phone calls
- Go back to the listing and claim it (via new account)
- After you claim and verify your ownership over it, make sure that the information in it and your original listing is exactly the same
- Wait for the two listings to merge

Why do I recommend that? Because the duplicate listing already has some "trust" points assigned by Google. You don't want to waste them by deleting the listing.

C) Listings are identical and CIDs are the same.

Whoops, Houston, we have a problem! This is usually caused by a bug on Google's side, which causes a record to duplicate. In this case I'd recommend that besides reporting the problem, you also go to the Google Places Help Forum and start a new thread, using a thread title such as "BUG ON GOOGLE PLACES! MY LISTING HAS A DUPLICATE!" If you don't get any response within 48 hours, delete the old thread, and create a new one with the same title.

Alternative Ways To Deal With Duplicates And Due Diligence.

Recently, Google improved their customer service for Places significantly. One of the best innovations is a troubleshooter, which helps streamline problems faster. One of the ways to use it, is to report duplicates. Here is how:

- Go to "My listing has incorrect information" troubleshooter
- Choose "I have verified my listing in my Google Places for business account."
- Choose "Yes (or it is not available on my listing)"
- Choose "There is a duplicate listing that I would like to have removed."
- Type your email and paste the URL to the duplicate listing
- Explain the problem in the Additional Details box

I have always been a big fan of due diligence on Google Places. The best thing you can do to ensure that you don't have to pass through the "duplicate" hell is to display your business information clearly and in the exact same way everywhere on the web. If you have recently changed your business name, location or phone number, make sure the old ones are not associated to your business online anymore.

The last option I feel mentioning is posting a thread on the Google Places Help Forum. As I mentioned above getting a response is not 100% secured, but the chances are good. About a month ago they made I and a few others were promoted to Top Contributors for the forum, thus we have the "power" to request help by Googlers on particular complicated cases. Duplicates definitely fall into this category, so we are trying to make sure every such problem is being treated promptly.

Conclusion

If done correctly, fighting against duplicates can sometimes bring you positives (Google trust). At the same time, making sure your business information is correctly displayed online can save you all the trouble. NAP (name, address, phone) in local search is "king".

See also:

• Restoring Your Google Places Listing After Being Removed For A Quality Guideline Violation
• Workarounds for Google Places Verification
• Google Places #1: How To Get A Red Balloon In 10 Steps

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

How to Deal with Duplicate Listings on Google Places

Google Places, Bing Business Portal and Yahoo! Local are free online business listings that all business should take advantage of.

This past June MapQuest launched MapQuest Local Business Center their free online business listing. Although Google and Bing both own a large part of the online search market,

MapQuest receives a good amount of search volume from its over 40 Million users. Every territory counts, therefore, we have decided to add our business listing to MapQuest too. Below are simple instructions.

Let’s get started

You need to have a MapQuest account in order to claim or add your listing. Go to MapQuest’s local business signup page to create an account. MapQuest will send you a confirmation email to activate the account so that you can get started. If you already have an account sign in.

Add Your Business

Here you will enter your basic information. Name, Address, Phone (NAP). Your business name should be the exact name of your business or organization. Your business name and address should be the same across all sites (website/listings/directories).

Click on “Continue” and on the next screen click on “Add Your Business”.

Enhanced Content

This is where you will add categories, your business description, photos and more. You may want to prepare your business description before hand and have the photos and video you want to upload all in one folder on your desktop. I found that having everything ready and easy to access before I start saves me a lot of time.

Categories: up to 5 – as you start typing in your category suggestions will populate. The categories you choose will help people find your business easier when they search MapQuest.

Reservation URL: this is for businesses that take reservations (restaurant) or schedule appointments (hair salon). If you have a link on your website you can copy and insert it here. It will take visitors right to your website to make the reservation or appointment– pretty cool.

Business description: this is where you want to market what your business is about; who you are, what you do, and why should someone want to visit your business. Showcase your products and services and say why you are the best at what you do. Use some keywords, but do not keyword stuff, you want it to make sense. You are allowed 1,000 characters. That’s good compared to Google Places who only allows 200 characters.

Photos: the first photo is your “storefront photo”. When I uploaded this photo I was asked for a “Caption”. This is a nice touch. Photo image format must be must be .jpg, .gif, or .png and the file size no more than 10 MB. The guidelines did not mention how many photos you can upload. I tested uploading 10, but could have uploaded more. Be sure to review their photo guidelines.

Video: you can upload a YouTube video. The MapQuest article I read said “Just copy and paste the link to your video into the text box". I did this, but I’m not sure if the link took or worked. Nothing happened after I inserted the link. I’ll know if it worked once our listing is published.

Business hours and payment methods: let customers know which days of the week and hours of the day you are open and be specific with you payment methods. Customers need to be able to find this information quickly and easily.

Location and parking tips: are you located near a town landmark or a hard to find location? If yes, let your customers know – make it easy for them to find you. Provide details such as where to park or how much it will parking cost and tips such as “Take the elevator to the 4th floor, and go to the first door on the right”. You are allowed 125 characters for each.

Verification

Here’s where it gets interesting. If you want instant verification, you need to purchase one of their packages starting at $8.25 per month. If you want the free listing, verification can take up to 90 days – OUCH! I was a little surprised. It was my understanding before I started that verification was by phone or credit card and my listing would be up within minutes. Perhaps, it’s because I’m adding a new business.

I was hoping to show you the end result of elSue’s MapQuest business listing. Since we are awaiting verification, here is an example MapQuest business listing, Play Music and Art, from a blog post about the MapQuest Local Business Center, written by sonjalowe at MapQuest.

When our listing goes live, I will write another post showing our listing and hopefully, a dashboard like Google Places where you can monitor analytics and maintain your listing. If you have a MapQuest business listing that has been published, please share it with us. Thank you!

Want to do better in local search? Read this:

• First Moves on Local Search: 10 Point Checklist
• Neighbourhood Watch: 5 Ways to Stay on Top of Local Search
• 5 Ways to Improve Your Local Listing

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Adding Your Business to MapQuest Local Business Center