In our introductory post to the Digital Buying Process, I outlined my objective to provide an overall context to the frenetic and rapidly developing digital marketplace. Within the ‘bigger picture’, the hope is that SMEs will gain a greater understanding of which areas of digital marketing are most relevant to your market and business.

Many of the SME owners and marketers I have spoken to are feeling frustrated with a blanket digital strategy proving somewhat ineffectual.  The idea is to utilise this holistic understanding to develop a roadmap of your prospective customers buying process, then identify the touchpoints where you can interact and then channel your resources into these areas.

In order to gain a strong understanding of your customers buying process, one fundamental truth to remember is that there are humans at the other end of your digital activity. This may sound incredibly obvious, however it is massively important to look past the online profiles and try and gain some cognitive understanding and [dare I say] empathy with your demographic.

In a paradoxically dehumanising fashion, let’s look at some of the stats:

These stats might invoke the response ‘so what – you are just describing the water I am drowning in’, and you may well be right. But this insight can serve as the foundation of you mapping your buying process.

Seeds of Micro Segmentation

Although these stats might not jump off the page with miraculous solutions for your digital visibility, they are the [massively] broad strokes of something called ‘micro segmentation’. This might sound dangerously like marketing jargon, but this process is essential to ensure you are targeting your resources to the relevant areas where your potential customers gather.

So for example, if you sell pet food then you are really only interested in targeting your digital efforts toward people who have pets. Again, painfully obvious. But let’s look at the experience of many SMEs within organic search engine optimisation. I would venture to say that the majority of SME clients who come to HP Group arrive targeting incorrect keywords.

To continue our hypothetical pet store example, let’s say they came to us with great visibility for the keyword ‘Pets’ which has 90,500 global monthly searchers, then you might be excused for thinking that having 90,000 plus people a month find the website is a good thing. This is not necessarily the case, as:

You would be better investing resources in competing for keywords that humans use to find the product!

Therefore the micro segmentation occurs by identifying who your customers are, then looking at where they gather both online and offline. This can be done by using massive amounts of market research and analytics tools, but I am yet to meet the SME who has the resources to channel to this.

There are some resources you can utilise which I touch on later in the series, however if you remember that there are humans the other side of digital, whilst remaining empathetic to their needs, you can answer a lot of these questions using logic and common sense – as per the keyword example.

The Digital Marketplace

Something which truly makes me pull my hair out each time I hear it is the perceived norm in marketing. When I was an account manager I regularly saw businesses that had been paying Yell.com 500.00GBP per month for a premium listing, some of them for YEARS! In many cases basic analysis of the website showed that there were a handful of referrals with nearly ZERO conversions and a bounce rate through the roof. [Apologies to Yell.com, am sure they have remarkable case studies of ROI, I am just yet to see them]

I hark back to my point in the previous post that there is no ‘norm’ in the digital marketplace. I use Yell as an example, but there are others such as running standard trade magazine ads or local newspaper ads, just because that is what’s been done traditionally. Unless the ad provider can validate the return on the activity you should start to look at other options. No SME cannot afford to plough 18K over three years into a something that provides no return.

Let’s take a look at a cross section of the digital marketplace:

This infographic highlights one possible section of the digital marketplace, the arrows in red highlights what might be a consumer’s buying process within this cross section. It contains elements of offline as this is not meant to be a condemnation of everything non-digital, offline is essential to many markets, but only effective when used in synchronicity with digital to harness the power.

To tie down the infographic with a narrative, a consumer’s buying process for the pet industry might be:

1. See an advert in a local paper
2. Visit your website
3. Visit your Facebook page
4. Do an organic local search
5. View the places listing
6. Visit 2 other listings
7. Contact via phone
8. Purchase offline

Granted this is somewhat speculative, however it builds up a cognitive profile of your consumer which is not beyond the stretch of the imagination. Here there are three main touchpoints, the website, local organic search, and a Facebook page.

Digital Marketing Strategy

You can build a strategy from these three touchpoints. Optimise your website for organic local search, set up a Facebook page, and run a localised and incentivised social activity, such as ‘Share Your Pet Photos for a Chance to Win…’ There you go, that will be 1500.00GBP please ;) But in reality, with the right agency [*cough*HP Group*cough*]  you could target these areas within a realistic budget.

It is important to clarify that it is not that simple, there is more to it which I will explore in more detail at a later stage in this series. The main point to take from this is: you can achieve a lot by breaking down your consumers’ sales process within the digital marketplace and remembering the human face of digital.

The next episode looks at identifying the beginning of the buying process and ways in which to target consumer needs. Your comments and feedback are always welcomed, so please feel free to leave a comment or contact HP Group, we’ll be delighted to hear from you.

In our last tutorial we looked at how you go about claiming an already verified Google Places listing and before we move into the big wide web outside of Places to examine optimisation, we thought it would be a good idea to provide you with a series of hints and tips to remember when setting up and updating your listing.

Do These Things:

Claim Your Listing!

Search for an existing listing for your business and if there is one, then it is essential that you claim your listing. Google strips data from other directories, so many businesses are listed even though they may not be aware of it. Get listed! If you are not in there you will not be visible in local search.

Give As Much Information As you Can

When you have access to your listing or you are initially setting up you listing, include as much content as you can. Include photos, videos, contact details, description, opening times and anything else you can think of. This impacts on compliancy of the listing and the usability of the listing for searchers.

Be Consistent!

Make sure that the details you are listing remain consistent with info both on and off site . If Google picks up on multiple addresses it can look untrustworthy which can affect your visibility within the Google Places search results.

Keep it Relevant

This may sound a bit obvious, but we have stumbled across it a number of times, if you wish to be visible in the Places listings for a certain area, then the address needs to be registered in that area. Additionally a local phone number won’t do any harm!

Select the Right Category

Make sure that you select at least one of the Google default categories. Search for the one most relevant to your business, this is easier for some industries than others, however you can consult Internet Yellow Pages sites like Yell.com if you are struggling to find the relevant category.

Engage Your Customers

When writing the description of your business, remember that this is part of your marketing material and you are directly addressing your customers. Ensure you include some relevant keywords but, as we explore in the next section, don’t overuse keywords as this can be counterproductive.

Don’t Do These Things:

Don’t Hide Your Address

There is an option that enables you to hide your address, don’t select this unless you don’t want your business to be found. This might be applicable for some businesses which operate via PO Boxes, but if you have premises you wish customers to know about, then do not select this.

DON’T SPAM!

An organic approach should be taken to this listing as you take to your own website or offline communication. If you SPAM your listing then you stand the chance of being banned completely from Google Places.

Don’t Have Multiple Addresses

It is fine to have multiple listings if they all have unique addresses, however it’s not advisable to have multiple listings with the same address. This looks like you are trying to SPAM listings and will not be looked upon favourably by Google. Try and claim and consolidate any duplicate listings

Don’t Stuff Keywords

As we alluded to earlier, too many keywords can look a lot like keyword stuffing, over optimisation and spamming is a sure fire way to get banished from the Google realm. Be sure to include your keywords, and if you keep to the ‘would this read well to a customer’ rule, then you won’t go too far wrong.

Don’t Duplicate Phone Numbers

As per addresses, multiple phone numbers do not help the performance of your listing. This is a more common problem as many businesses consolidate numbers through websites to a central number, so if you have a unique number with a local area code then use it.

Don’t List Locations in Categories

When you come to selecting your Google Places category, then you should not include any keywords that relate to the location. That information will be picked up from your address so it is not necessary, additionally it is against Google’s guidelines so could be penalised.

Always Remember

Adding location and service keywords to the Business page title has helped performance in the past but Google does not recommend this technique and it is likely the influence of this could be devalued in the future. If you are going to do this, do it sensibly, visibility will not happen overnight. New listings may have initial success but more often than not they will drop off. In our experience listings that have been optimised seem to stabilize after about 6 months.

Reviews are a really important part of optimising your places listing, but too many in a short space of time, or multiple from the same IP address will get flagged, marked as SPAM and penalised. You should try and encourage comments from clients in an organic manner, by integrating it into your CRM processes.

The Physical business Address being in City of Search is obviously a huge factor in ranking in local. Don’t expect to turn up in Glasgow results if your business in London.

Without meaning to sound like a nagging grandparent, if you can stick to these basic best practice guidelines then you stand a very good chance of gaining local visibility, especially when combined with an optimisation strategy. We will be walking you through some possible strategies in our next Google Places tutorial which will cover optimisation away from the places page.

As always we love to hear from you so please leave us a comment or contact us if you have any comments or further questions about Google Places or any other aspect of SEO.

In our last tutorial we walked you through how to target your PPC campaign, providing tips to ensure that your ad spend is channelled to the most relevant searches, helping your budget go further through increased ROI. After you have ensured that your ads are only appearing only in the most relevant searches, the time has come to explore ways in which to influence those searchers to click on your ad – so it’s time to get creative!
 
Put yourself in the place of one of your customers, what would entice you to click through? Have a look at what ads are currently visible for your relevant key terms and analyse what your competitors are doing that works, and what doesn’t work. Remember, attention spans are at an all time low so you need to make an impact in a really short amount of time, here are a couple of tips to help you stand out from the crowd.
 
 

1. Include a Call to Action

A call to action is basically an instruction to do something within the text of the ad. Particularly effective calls to action are incentivised which includes a benefit to the searcher [e.g. Save money, free delivery, offer ends soon, ect]. If you can answer the searcher’s question ‘what’s in it for me’ and instruct how they can obtain this benefit, then you are on your way to writing a good ad.

2. Bold the Relevant Keywords

The average internet user is now ‘sophisticated’ and well versed in the use of search engines. This means that they are scanning results faster than ever, so you need to do everything possible to communicate the most important parts of your ad. This might be down to just one word in bold, but we have experienced dramatic differences in ad campaigns which utilise bold text in the right places. Check out this guide from Google to bolding text in your PPC campaign for a ‘how to’ guide.

3. Create with Cognition

Writing a slick ad that generates a high click-through rate is great, but the objective here is conversions. This means that you need to be aware of the landing page when writing the ads, as the ad builds up certain expectations which need to be addressed rapidly when they land. On a basic level, make sure the details such as the financials and any features of the offers are consistent and clearly stated within the landing page.

Knowing how to take advantage of the nuances attached to each element of a PPC ad will ensure that your campaigns stand head and shoulders above your competitor’s. It’s not enough to write a good ad, it needs to be great.

Watched this space for more PPC tutorials and if you have any questions or comments, please contact us, we are delighted to hear from you.

This series will not contain  masses of ground breaking statistics or market research; it is based on the work I have been doing with Virgin Media Pioneers and the common discussions I have regularly with Small to Medium-sized Enterprise [SME] marketers and business owners.

I am Head of Marketing for HP Group, a leading independent search engine marketing agency and SME. I spent years working as a copywriter and account manager, this experience and my ongoing interactions with SMEs from a vast spectrum of sizes and industries, has lead me to the conclusion that many lack overall context to their marketing activities.

Although high profile brand case studies and cutting edge R&D is banded about freely, there does not seem to be a massive amount of content out there for SMEs to ‘make sense’ of the digital marketplace. These posts pertain to offer a new perspective through providing the relevant context in an accessible format.

Crossing the Digital Chasm

The digital market place is a constantly evolving and convoluted collision of consumer and business which leaves many I speak to feeling lost. If I had been bought a drink every time I stumbled into a marketer or business owner in a social situation who, on hearing what I do for a living, fires a series of questions at me with undertones of desperation, I would be in serious trouble!

The truth is that things are moving faster than many organisations can learn and adapt. When I explain this concept to people I find it always helps to refer to the basic model that Geoffrey A. Moore developed in Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers:

This concept communicates the challenge that marketers face in bridging the gap between technology and the consumer majority, my educated guess would be a similar shaped graph for the diffusion of digital initiatives into marketing budgets, this especially true of SMEs.

It has been suggested through research that SMEs are more aggressive in tech adoption, however what any marketer worth their salt will tell you is that adopting a technology means pretty little unless it is paired with strategy. Having a Twitter account is great, but you need to know how to use it. There are masses of content out there looking at when to Tweet, how many times to tweet, but the question you should be asking is:

Do my potential clients use Twitter, why would they use it and how/when can I engage them?

Back to the graphic! As the constant deluge of technological innovations hits, it is easy to see how you could feel overwhelmed, as adopting a technology is not the same as utilising its potential. The aggressive adoption referred to could be the fact that SMEs are more fluid and can retrofit new technology into business operations at little or no cost.

Let’s face it, setting up free accounts is not the same as a fully integrated CRM system used to manage millions of customers. The truth is that the fervent investment in venture capital for the next paradigm changing technological innovation drives the technology forward at a rate faster than many businesses can adopt and maintain. To be even more frank here are a couple of points:

• Facebook is only JUST sorting its own ads out from utter SPAM
• Social Commerce is in its infancy
• Google+ was only launched last summer
• Twitter has not monetised efficiently

THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING! So how can anyone else know for sure?

So be very weary of anyone offering solutions that are definitive. The process is different for each market and each business, mapping the buying process and strategising around it can make your budget go further. Do what you can yourself, understand which areas are core and invest your budget in these areas. There are things you can do yourself but you need to invest to grow, something along the lines of 7–8% of annual turnover for companies less than 5 million, should be invested in your marketing budget.

This is where agencies and/or consultancies come in with expert insight into these rapidly developing technologies which usually involve you parting with sums of money for them to bestow their wisdom on your business. I represent an agency [a great agency!] so I tread with caution when I make this statement , it is important to understand the agencies’ role in the wider context of the relevant digital marketplace.

We get a lot of feedback from new clients describing how they felt alienated from and frustrated with previous agencies because they were never educated in the relevant service area. ‘But you don’t want to give too much away, right?’ WRONG!

Give it away, the chances are that the info is out there already, so shout about your expertise and innovation! Providing an educational experience for your clients cements relationships and if you can provide that educational experience in the sales process then your conversion rate WILL rise.

To put into direct context of Moore’s diagram, if you sell digital products and you have a digital product which, let’s say opens doors automatically [metaphor alert!], then you must provide this educational experience or no-one will ever know that they need this type of product, let alone that they need to choose your product. The concept can be applied to any business, service, product or company, no matter what market. The market place is instantaneous and saturated – how do you stand out?

You need to provide a meaningful branded experience within the buying process; answer the client’s question ‘what’s in it for me? Why should I care about your company?’. This is achieved by mapping the buying process that is unique for your product/service and company, then channelling content into touchpoints within the buying process where your customers or clients gather online to research. This builds trust because:

The buying process is both iterative and educational

The more trust [or money – let’s be honest] involved in the transaction, the more complex the buying process, so building trust during the pre contact stage of the buying process is essential.

This series of posts takes a somewhat organic approach toward examining the concept of a digital buying process and makes suggestions how you can start to map yours.

I use the word ‘organic’ as with all this technology flying around, it is important to remember that we are dealing with humans at the other end of this buying process. It sounds painfully obvious but it is easily forgotten.

All this technology serves the purpose of engaging another human. The next post in this series focuses on ‘The Human Face of Digital’ and explores how an empathetic approach can open doors automatically.

In our last Google Places tutorial we walked you through dealing with multiple listings but what do you do if you discover that one of these multiple Places listings has already been verified by someone else who does not represent your company?

This was a pretty common complaint from businesses so it has been addressed by Google. They have now introduced a new section in Google Places Help, simply click on the link to ‘My listing has incorrect information’ which appears under the ‘Fix a Problem’ heading:

What if this does not work?

There was interesting insight from someone at Google which suggested an alternative method of reclaiming a Google Places listing that has been verified by someone else. This was suggested by a Googler before the new “someone else has my listing” feature came along so try the form first.

But if you are experiencing difficulties you can try these steps after logging in to your Places account:

1. Locate the PIN verified listing that you have not verified, then click on the places icon which will bring up the profile

2. In the top right hand corner of the screen you will see an option marked ‘Owner Verified Listing’ – click on this link:

3. This will take you to your Google Places panel, then you need to click on ‘Add a New Business’ option

4. Then fill out the exact same details as the verified listing you wish to claim, click submit

5. You should see the listing available to claim, then claim it!

After you have claimed the listing, the same PIN verification process will apply as we outlined in our previous post outlining how to set up a Google Places listing. In our experience this will take a couple of weeks saving you time on reclaiming your listing.

If you have experience of this method or have any further questions, comments or concerns about Google Places or other aspects of SEO, please leave us a message or feel free to contact us.

Stay tuned for more Google Places Tutorials!

Targeting your PPC ads is massively important as this is where you ensure that you are visible for the right keywords in the right locations within search. For the Google Search Network, this is defined in three main areas:

Target Keywords:

Make sure you have done your keyword research!

Ensure you are targeting the ad to those most relevant to your product or service. Do not go just on volumes alone, sometimes the obvious or generic keywords might not be the most relevant to the searches that will convert within your site. Avoid competing unnecessarily on keywords which are not directly relevant to your customers, then they stand a better chance of attracting the right type of traffic, leading to return on investment.

Organising your keywords into themed lists is essential in getting the most from your campaign. Google penalises badly structured or haphazard accounts. If you don’t keep your account organised you could end up bidding higher than you need to in order to compensate for a lack of structure.

Ideally you want no more than 5 keywords in each adgroup and they need to be similar in theme and spelling. If you have 100 keywords and this means 20 adgroups are needed, don’t try and cut corners, you’ll regret it in the long run.

Target Location and Language

Just as important as targeting your PPC ads to the right searches is targeting them to the right areas. This can be done by country, geolocation and language. If you are not an international organisation then obviously you want to restrict your ads to appearing in the UK and in a set language. If you are a local business then you can narrow this area down to specific places within the UK, to ensure that your ads are only showing to searchers from relevant areas.

Be careful when assigning all the campaign settings. Google has a set of defaults that, if you don’t change, will spend your budget in minutes.

The most important is the geo-targeting setting. The default for this is ‘all’, meaning your ads get shown worldwide. Google recently updated the Geo-Targeting options and it’s now possible to target very small areas anywhere in the world. You may also like to consider replicating your campaigns several times and targeting a different location with each.

Target Devices

Targeting your campaign to certain devices such as mobile, tablet or desktop can ensure that you are sending visitors to a compatible site. For example it is a good idea to send searchers who click through from mobile devices to a mobile site if you have one set up. This ensures that you are targeting only the relevant searchers to make your ad spend go further.

If you sell products related to mobile devices then you’ll obviously want to target mobile users. It’s always best practise to duplicate campaigns and use one to target mobile devices and the other to target desktop users. This is, of course, if you have a mobile site. If you don’t have a mobile site and your site as it stands is very busy, you might not want to show it to mobile users.

Watch this space for more expert insight into PPC basics in our series of PPC Tutorials. If you have any questions or comments then please leave a comment or contact us – we will be delighted to hear from you.

In this tutorial we look at the best way to get your campaign started and provide expert insight into how to steepen your learning curve, ensuring your campaign gets off to the best possible start.

Setting up your PPC account

Setting up your Google Adwords account is straight forward and consists of three simple steps:

1.Create an account

Creating an account is as easy as setting up a new email account, in fact that should be your first move. If you don’t already have a Gmail account then create a new one. You’ll use this to login into your new AdWords account but it will also be the gateway to other related Google products should you wish to use them in the future. Once you have registered this account you’ll be asked for some simple details concerning the time zone you operate in and the currency you will be using. Make sure these are correct as they cannot be changed afterwards. Once these details are associated with your account you’re ready to start putting a strategy in place and writing ads.

For exact instructions just visit Google’s support centre and follow the guide to getting started in three basic steps:

2. Create Your First PPC Ad

The keyword research you have already carried out will go a long way to helping you decide what your ads should look like. It’s important to include your targeted keywords in the ad somewhere in order for them to jump off the search pages but there are other things you’ll need to remember. Take advantage of the format. There are restrictions regarding how many characters you can use on each line, try to use as many as possible. You’re ad will stand out and look more impressive if you do. Include a USP or promotions whenever possible, again this will help you stand out from the crowd. Many people neglect to use the display URL to their advantage. Put a keyword extension on the end of it. Finally always direct the visitor to the best landing page, use something relevant and engaging.

When you come to creating your first ad, it is important to put yourself in the end users position. You will be competing with other businesses on the same keyword so ask yourself why would someone click on this ad? Include keywords and a call to action, we will deal with this in more detail in a subsequent tutorial.

3. Activate your account

Once you’re happy with the ads you’ve created and the keywords you’re targeting it’s a simple step to activate the account. In fact if you’ve already entered billing details all you’ll need to do is activate the campaigns you want to run. At this point you’ll be responsible for managing the account. If you’d like a search marketing agency to manage your account then get in touch with us, we are an Adwords Certified Partner and have a team of qualified professionals who handle accounts of all sizes every day.

If you are setting up a new account then you are eligible for an Adwords voucher and as we manage a total spend in the millions each year, we have them in abundance, so please contact us if you would like a free voucher, we have a box full of them!

Our next PPC tutorial will focus on targetting your ads. For more information on any of the points discussed please leave a comment or get in touch.

Google Places is an essential marketing tool for most businesses, as it provides a free resource for you to list your business and engage your customers. This is the next installment in our series of Google Places tutorials helping you create, claim and optimise your Google Places listing. In this chapter we focus on what to do if you have discovered a multiple listing for your business.

In the last Google Places Tutorial we outlined how to find and claim an existing Google Places listing, however sometimes when you search for your listing, you might find that more than one exists. This can be a problem for the following reasons:

• It’s in breach of the Google Places guidelines and can appear ‘spammy’
• It’s better to consolidate listings and make all interactions occur within a single account
• Information is generally different for each listing which can lead to data inaccuracies
• It’s easier to maintain, update and stay in touch with your customers

If you discover a duplicate listing, the first thing is do not panic! If you are the legitimate owner/representative of the business then you will be able to resolve the situation by following these steps.

How to remove unclaimed Google Places duplicates?

Before continuing you need to establish if you have duplicate listings in your Places Account or whether they’re just in Google maps.

If you have duplicates in your Google places account then skip this first section and come back once you’ve done.

Removing duplicates appearing in Google Maps search results

1. The first step is to choose the listing that you want to use. Choose the listing that is already prominent in local searches and/or has the most accurate and relevant business information. Claim this listing and proceed to fill out and correct as much data as possible including, address, local phone number, images and videos etc.
2. Then you must ensure that the status of the main claimed listing is ACTIVE
3. For all unclaimed duplicates that you want to remove go to their places page and click “report a problem link”
4. In the report a problem section select the “Place has another listing” option and provide a reference/link to the main listing that you want to keep in the comments so the reviewer can see this.

What if i have multiple listings already in my Google places account?

If you have duplicates already in your Google Places dashboard Google recommend deleting these using “remove this listings from my Google Account” option.

If you want to be a little more aggressive with the removal you can first choose “Remove this listing from Google Maps” and then go back a second time and “remove this listing from my Google Account”

As always with an organisation the size of Google’s, patience is a virtue! In our experience it will usually take around 2-3 weeks for changes to show within results, so you need to be diligent with checking the status of your requests.

The next installment of the series of Google Places tutorials will be tackling the sometimes tricky and confusing task of ‘How to claim a Google Places listing that is already owner verified’.

If you have any further questions about Google Places or any aspect of SEO, please feel free to leave a comment or contact us.

Google has announced the launch of social hub data, a process that provides open standards so that social networks can submit their activity streams into GA and other analytics tools.  As we are Google Analytics Certified Partners, we have had the inside scoop on this and have prepared an overview:

What are the benefits?

In short it means that Social websites will be able to share data better with Analytics tools like Google Analytics. This should mean that in the future Analytics tools will do a much better job of helping marketers analyse the performance of their social activity.  No doubt this will pave the way forward for more reports that will provide valuable insight into how much interaction there is with your content, you can build a picture of what content is bringing visitors to your site and if you have your goal tracking set up in Google Analytics, you can track what type of content is leading to a conversion.

This data hub will monitor social media platforms and make their impact visible within your Google Analytics – including the individual actions performed. It will also provide a comprehensive and inclusive picture of your global social landscape

What does this mean for your business?

If more social sites share their data in a uniform way it will mean that the reports that you get could be consolidated in one place which means that you will potentially be able to analyse all social platforms and actions alongside each other, you can make informed decisions about where to invest your resources. For example you might find that people are interacting with video more than any other type of content, therefore you can expand your video marketing activities leading to more interaction.

Previously within Google Analytics you could only see the social platforms as a source of referral traffic, this feature will provide valuable data in the following areas:

• Social networks e.g. LinkedIn, G+
• Social bookmarking e.g. delicious
• Social news
• Content communities
• Collaborative projects e.g. wikis
• Blogging/micro-blogging e.g twitter
• Status trackers e.g. Foursquare

We will be keeping a very close eye on Google Analytics in light of this development and look forward to potential future developments. We will keep you posted so please follow this post for more expert insight into the range of exciting new GA features.

In the first tutorial in this series we covered creating a brand new Google places listing. In this second post we’re looking at what to do if there is a pre-existing listing in Google Places that you want to claim.

How does Google get its Business listings information?

Before we start, it’s important to understand how Google gathers its Business listings data so you know where this listing might have come from and what needs to be done to claim it.

Some Business listings are populated by business owners like yourself, however many listings are automatically populated by Google from information pulled from trusted online directories such as Thomson Local and via the aggregation of other data Google find about your business on the web.

As a result, you may already find that your business is listed in Google Places and at times there might even be multiple versions of it with varying company details.

In this post we guide you through the process of finding and claiming these existing business listings and give you a few best practice tips along the way.

Before we get stuck in, log into Google using your Google account, as any changes to Google Places listings require a logged in user.

How do I know if my business is already listed in Google Places?

1. Go to Google Maps
2. Type in the name of your company and click search
   TIP: If there are lots of results returned and you’re having a hard time trying to find your business in the list you may want to try including the town or city the company is based in or even the telephone number to help drill down the choices.
3. If you’re search is unsuccessful it’s time to jump back to the previous post on How to create a new Google Places listing.
4. If you have found a listing, click it to view the existing information
   TIP: make a note of any others you believe are your business so you can come back and claim these later on.

How do I know if my Google business listing has already been verified?

By now you know whether Google has your business listed or not; now you need to find out whether this was an automated listing generated by Google or whether somebody has already submitted and/or claimed it.

To determine this, look up in the top right hand corner of the listing and you should see a status message telling you either: “Edit this place – Business owner?” or “Edit this place – Owner-verified listing” (click the following image for an example of this)

What does this mean?

• “Edit this place – Business owner?”
  This basically means that the listing you are viewing has not been claimed by the owner.

• “Edit this place – Owner-verified listing”
  This means that someone has already claimed the listing as their own.

If you see the first message, go straight ahead and click the “Business Owner?” link and you’ll be taken to a page and given the following options:

• Edit my business information
• Suspend this listing
• This isn’t my listing

In this instance you’ll probably want to choose “Edit my business information“ and go on to verify the listing as your own.  For more information on how to do this read our first post on How to create a new Google Places listing.

If it’s the second message you receive then I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait a little while for our follow up post “claiming ownership of an Owner verified Google Places Listing” as this can be a little tricky!…

A quick heads up on other upcoming posts in the series:

• Dealing with multiple Google Places listings
• How to claim a Google Places listing that is already owner verified