How Google Maps Marketing Can Help Boost Local Sales?

Written by Professional Academy Guest Bloggers 

Google Maps Marketing? What!

Maps for Marketing? Are you kidding me?

Most of you think like that, right? If you believe that Google Maps is only for people looking for directions or parking spaces, you are entirely wrong. It is for your business marketing as well. And just for your information, your competitors are on the map, and you aren’t.

Google Maps is an excellent tool for local marketing for new to established businesses, small to medium sized ones. How? Well, people need to know that you are there for them and Google Map marketing lets you do exactly that.

Did you know that over a billion active users are searching for addresses or directions on Google Maps?

Did you know that 97% of consumers search for local businesses online and review them?

If no, then you are missing a great deal of crucial information for your business. Be the business of this era and grab as much understanding as you can about Google Maps marketing.

Google Maps

Google Maps is a web mapping service, developed by the Mavericks themselves. You get street maps, satellite imagery, street views, panoramic views, real-time traffic conditions and route planning. Sincere thanks to Google for making our lives so easy.

Moving further, have you noticed the meta tag of Google Maps?

Google Maps is a great business weapon for small to medium sized companies. It helps people locate your office and tell them that there is a company that can offer them the services or products they wish to have. That too in the particular area they are located in.

For example, if Bob is looking for local coffee machine vendors in Bentonville to install one in his office, he typed ‘local coffee machines in Bentonville’ in Google Search.

He got the first three results here at Google Maps. The top three listed companies now have the highest chance of getting clicked and visited, for the ease of location, direction and other relevant information that Bob found on Google Maps while looking for the coffee machine options.

Bob could reach to the locations of these businesses as he was offered the directions to the offices he wished to visit, despite being unfamiliar to some new localities.

Now, imagine if the same Bob is searching on the internet for the products or services that you offer, but you are not listed on Google Maps, then? You will lose Bob and many other Bobs to the ones who are listed on Google Maps. You will lose business. It hurts, ouch!

Have a Google Business Listing for Your Business

Google Business Listings can help your small business reach greater heights. This is the place where you can feed in all the relevant information about your business so that local customers can find you and contact you.

The first step towards making your business easier to find on Google Maps is getting yourself listed on Google My Business. Being listed on Google Maps can help you get first-page ranking on search results. Conditions apply!

The best part is you don’t need a brick and mortar set up to get listed here. All you need is a Gmail id and a physical mailing address.

Getting your business is a super easy task. Just follow the instructions, fill the required fields, and your business will start getting displayed on your local area in the Google Maps. However, the key to a successful display is local optimization.

Make sure you consider the best practices for optimizing your Google My Business listings.

Key Takeaways:

  • Select the correct business category
  • Give the correct address and phone number
  • Add relevant pictures and title them as per user intent
  • Choose the right keywords for description

Check out Walmart Supercenter’s Google Maps listing for a local Bentonville area.

Validating Your Listing

You have to be patient with the validation. Although it will show your account active, Google takes the time to approve and list your business on Maps. Sit back and relax!

Now Understand Google Maps Marketing

You started Google Maps Marketing long ago when you took the first step of enlisting your business on Google My Business.

Now since you have a fair idea of the basic concepts around Google Maps, you will be able to comprehend Google Maps Marketing. It is a combination of all the tools and resources that are available for a business to optimize its presence on Google Maps.

I am going to list the following 6 key dynamics for your business’s Google Maps Marketing Strategy.

  1. Help Google understand what business you do through appropriate photos or your products or services. Update identity photo, cover image and logo image to optimize your listings.
  2. You boost your local sales through Google Maps Marketing when you add images using your phone. Google regards any form of mobile activity as a positive event happening with your listing. It indicates to users that customers are contacting your business, making it display on the top of Google Maps results.
  3. The quality of inbound links and consistency of citations are important ranking factors for Google. High-quality links directing to your business website improve your chances of topping the search list on Google Maps.
  4. Good reviews help you reach to the leading display position on Google Maps. All you need is one positive review to earn the golden snippet near your business name.
  5. Name, address, phone number, email and opening hours are the five must have elements for on page optimization of your listing. Make sure you have put them correctly.
  6. In case you are managing your PPC ads through Google AdWords, you will be impressed to hear that you can promote your business on Google Maps too.

This is all the necessary information you must have before you come up with a killer Google Maps Marketing strategy for boosting your local sales.

If you would like further information, you can visit our Digital Marketing Qualification pagedownload a copy of our Marketing Qualifications brochure or contact a qualifications adviser today.