Being listed on Google is a great way to drive awareness or new leads, many tradesmen and retailers are failing to take full advantage of the free advertising on offer. This post will outline exactly how you can.

Before we start, we need you to do something really quick, we want you to go and type this into Google:

 

“[Your Trade] in [Your Area]”

(E.g. plumbers in Manchester or electricians in Glasgow)

 

Or for retailers:

 

“[Your business type] in [Your area]

(E.g. builders merchants in Bristol or Hardware Birmingham)

 

You’ll notice that Google went away and found a selection of tradesmen and retailer businesses that matched that description, was your business amongst them? If it was, then well done, you don’t need to read on! If it wasn’t, then listen up, because we’re going to tell you how to get it up there…

Here’s a step by step guide on how to create your business listing and how to rise to the top:

 

#1 - Create/ Claim Your Google Place Listing

Creating a Google listing is easy, simply visit Google My Business and set up an account by filling in all of the relevant details about your business. However, Google may have already auto-created a listing for your company based on information it’s found online. If that’s the case then you should be able to claim ownership of it!

 

#2 - Select Your Listing Category

This is important, you’ll be prompted to select a primary category for your business, choose the option that best describes your business. Consider what you would want someone to search in order to find your business. You’ll also get the chance to add some secondary categories here.

 

#3 - Consistent listings across the web

Google favours listings that have consistent information across the web, your business will likely be listed on other websites such as yell.com. Moz has a handy, free tool for checking this called Moz local. Simply enter your business details and it does all the hard work checking your listings online and highlights any inconsistencies.

 

#4 - Reviews

Encourage people to review your business in order to rise through the rankings further, the aim is to be at the top of the list! Don’t be tempted to post fake reviews, as many company’s have been penalised for this.

 

#5 - Keep the listing updated

Keep your Google listing updated, add photo’s and update information to ensure that it’s always relevant. This will again help to push your company up the listings towards the top spot!

 

Follow these 5 steps and you should see your businesses visibility steadily improve on Google. There are high volumes of search queries for local tradesmen on Facebook, so hopefully you’ll start to see more leads coming in too!

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