SEO

Adjusting Google places for multiple locations

Google places

Houston we have a problem

Id imagine it’s a fairly common dilemma,I’ve certainly encountered it a number of times. Your business serves an area containing a number of towns, how does one set up Google places to cover what I will refer to as a district, this guide will hope to make the process fairly easy, it assumes you already possess a verified Google places listing for your business.

1. Log into Google Places

   Here’s a direct link Google places



1.0 places for business

2. Edit your business listing



2.0 Edit business Listing

3. Adjust your Service areas accordingly

   my profile includes Morecambe & the South Lakes, I wish to include Lancaster in my service areas, there is two ways to achieve this either by a list of areas covered or by a radius from your Google places home location, which is the option I have gone for



Google places service areas

Conclusions

Google places is free and it definitely has an impact on search rankings and will probably be merged with Google plus in the near future so time spent getting the most out of this service is in my opinion time well spent especially if your business has a website or online presence

Credibility

Having a fully developed online footprint is a vital part of establishing your organisations credibility, which is vital for online business

I’m busy formulating business strategy for the new year, This includes various content management and ecommerce packages available. I’ve set up a local Lamp server and I’m pleasantly surprised how good Linux Mint is, additionally I’ve been evaluating Drupal, I’ve come to the conclusion its vastly overpowered for the type of websites I generally develop, so I’ll be continuing to use WordPress for the majority of my websites , this is not denigrating Drupal in any way its simply far too powerful for the small business websites I work on , another factor influencing this decision is the user friendliness of WordPress which makes it perfect for clients who are slightly wary of Information Technology.

As my previous job has now come to an end its time to update the blog and bring the overall site up to date, and ensure that I post on a regular basis, with the release of the Google Panda & Penguin algorithm updates everything has changed and your company’s website needs to change in order to acknowledge this. Rhetoric & hyperbole aside everything has changed. Keyword density is no longer a positive ranking factor. Simply repeating the keyword you wish to rank for ad nauseum is not going to help your website, on the contrary Google is likely to punish your site.

Quality Content is King

Personally I feel this is a positive change by Google and given time lead to a better quality web to revise the old Canard Quality Content is King, I personally don’t regard semi relevant stock imagery as top quality content