Google Places is a free tool provided by Google for your business that can pay abundant dividends by amplifying the traffic flow to your website, increasing your website visibility in Google searches, and growing your company’s sales.  Google recently claimed that one out of five searches on Google are related to a geographic location.  Google Places allows you to create a listing for your business within Google Maps, which also frequently shows in regular search results, where a user can find the products and/or services you offer with map based directions and other information about your business.

The Basics

Whether you’ve already created or claimed your Google Places listing or if you’ve yet to do so, the first step in having your listing rank well is to make sure you’ve fully completed your business profile.   Answer all of the fields Google provides completely and with as much information as possible.  Upload pictures of your products and services, your team, or business.  If available, upload videos about your business or products.  Video topics can include sales, company history, or product demonstrations.  Add an offer or two for your business, which is a essentially a free online coupon.  The more quality, relevant content you add to your Google Places profile, the better overall your listing will rank.

If you haven’t already created or claimed your Google Places listing for your business, you can learn how to so here.

Google Places in Search Results:  A Competitive Edge for Your Business

The Google Places listing for your business will also sometimes appear in keyword search results in Google.  Google has recently placed a stronger emphasis on Google Places listings, often showing Google Places info above organic search results for a certain keyword search.  For example, a company’s actual website could be ranked #20 organically appearing on the second page results for a given keyword search, but show up on the first page search results, or even #1, with its Google Places listing.  The Google Places search placement result isn’t for the company’s website itself, but instead for its Google Places listing.

In the example below, we’ll use Quality Shed’s Glendale, CA location and the keyword phrase search “Glendale, CA sheds”.  The company’s actual website pages are listed on the second page results, however its Google Places listing is coming up #1 overall!  When you click on Quality Shed’s Google Places listing heading, it takes you directly to their website, not the listing itself.  By getting your Google Places listing to rank high in Google, you can give yourself a significant search advantage over your competitors while creating an important new entrance point to your website potentially attracting new customers you wouldn’t have otherwise.

Other Business Directories Affect Your Google Places Listing

Google will search other business directory sites that may include a listing for your business along with any reviews for your business.  Google currently scrapes reviews about your business from these other sites and will populate your Google Places listing with those reviews.  In the above example, although Quality Sheds has four reviews in its Google Places listing, it also has a review from someone who reviewed the company through “Insiderpages.com”.  Google pulled a review from InsiderPages about the Quality Sheds and automatically added it to their Google Places listing.  The review pulled from insiderpages.com was a positive review for the company, however  it’s essential to check your Google Places listing regularly to ensure any possible negative reviews that could be floating around in cyberspace about your business don’t inadvertently get pulled in by Google to your listing. When reviews are added about your business in any directory, it’s beneficial for you to personally respond to both good and bad reviews about your business.

It’s a good idea to make sure your business is listed on as many reputable directory and review sites as possible.  However, because there are a multitude of directories on the web, many of which would hold little value to your business, you’ll want to focus on local directories and directories that center on your type of business.  Local online phone directories and trade organization websites that provide business listings are a good start.  Make sure you accurately list your business name and add as much info as you can about your business to each.   It’s important to have your business name consistently shown in all directories so that search engines can identify that a listing belongs to your business and not another.  If you find your business in a directory  with auto-populated information that isn’t accurately spelled or contains other information that’s incorrect, make sure you claim the listing or contact the directory’s administrator to correct it.

Sitemaps and Geo Sitemaps

It’s a must to have a sitemap.xml file, usually placed in the root directory of your site, for search engines like Google to find and read each time it indexes your site.  This site map file provides the complete page structure of your site to search engines.  If you have a traditional HTML based site, you’ll want to manually generate and upload your sitemap.xml file to your site periodically or at least when you make significant changes to your site.  A good resource for generating a sitemap of your site is xml-sitemaps.com .

With WordPress based websites (and with some other CMS sites) you can install a free plugin that constantly and automatically keeps your sitemap.xml up to date with the changes and updates you make to your website.  You can download the WordPress sitemap generator plugin her

Your sitemap file will help your overall site ranking, but alone may not influence how well your business ranks in Google Places.  However, another type of sitemap, the Geo Sitemap,  can be a factor considered by Google for your Google Places ranking.  The Geo Sitemap is a KML file which is used by Google to show locations on both Google Earth and Google Maps.  To generate a Geo Sitemap, you’ll need to create two files, a KML file, and an XML file, and upload both to your sites root directory.  You’ll then need to submit the Geo Sitemap to Google with your Google Webmaster Tools account.  To generate both the necessary KML and XML files, you can use the Geo Sitemap generator tool at SiteMapDoc.com .   Follow the directions and upload the files to your site.  Remember to change the generated code to use your website’s correct URL and make sure you save both files with the appropriate file extension, .kml and .xml.  Finally make sure you add your new Geo Sitemap file to your Google Webmaster Tools account.  You’ll need to submit your .xml file to Google Webmaster (which points to your .kml file).  If you don’t already have a Google Webmaster account you can sign up for one through your Google Account or by clicking here.

Conclusion

Google Places is a dynamic service that Google is constantly tweaking to improve the way it serves its search engine users and revenue model.  It’s critical to stay on top of Google Places current trends;  what is an effective strategy today, may not be tomorrow.  Once you’ve mastered the topics described in this article, you’ll also want to educate yourself on more advanced methods to improve your Google Places ranking.   Best of luck with optimizing your Google Places listing and growing your business.

Author’s Note:  I’d like to extend a special thank you to Quality Sheds of Glendale for allowing me to use their company as an example in this article.

Author’s Note:  I’d like to extend a special thank you to Quality Sheds of Glendale for allowing me to use their company as an example in this article.

1. From the main navigation menu, select “File” and in the dropdown menu, select “Info“. To the right of “Info” in “Account Information” pane, click on the “New Account” button.

2. After the “Auto Account Setup” window pops up, select the “Manually configure server settings or additional server types” radio button.

3. In the next window that appears, make sure the “Internet E-mail” radio button is selected.

4. The “Internet E-mail Settings” window should now appear. Enter your information as shown in following example making sure you select IMAP as your Account Type and use your entire email address as your user name. The incoming and outgoing servers should both be the same, mail.mydomain.com, where mydomian.com is your domain name, for example mail.itegritygroup.com. “Require logon using Secure Password Authentication (SPA)”, should NOT be checked.

5. Click on the “More Settings …” button.

6. Select the “Outgoing Server” tab. Check the box next to “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication” and make sure the first radio button is selected, “Use same settings as my incoming mail server”.

7. Select the “Advanced” tab. You shouldn’t have to make changes to this page, but it’s a good idea to double check the settings. For IMAP, the “Incoming server (IMAP)” should be set to 143 and “Outgoing server (SMTP)” to 25.

8. At this point your email should be configured properly. Click the “OK“ button and you’ll be taken back to the “Internet E-mail Settings” window. Click on the “Test Account Settings” button and if a test email is able to be sent and received successfully then you’re finished. Click on the “Next“ button and then “Finish“ in the window that follows.

The method you use to buy images on istockphoto.com is through the purchase of credits.  Credit costs depend on the volume of credits you purchase.  Buying a batch of 50 credits or less will cost you about $1.50-$1.60 per credit.

To get started, navigate to istockphoto.com and create a free account and then login.  Next, begin searching for your images by using istockphoto.com’s search tool

Once the results appear for your search term, you’ll be presented with advanced search options in the left sidebar of the page for you to optionally fine tune your search.  There are a multitude of options here, however if you’re looking specifically for images and photos for your website, you can check the “Photos” box under “Narrow Your Results” to instruct istockphoto.com to only show photos in your search results, excluding vector illustrations, video, audio, and flash.

If you’d like to further refine your search results, scroll down to find the sidebar header that reads “Photos & Illustration Filters”.  Click on the small arrow on the right hand side to expand the Photo & Illustration Filters search options.

The new search filters will allow you to find images that are oriented in certain way (vertical, horizontal, or square) and/or contain a specific color that you choose (possibly to match your company logo and/or website branding).  I find the CopySpace filter to be of little use as I’ve found it to produce inconsistent results.

Once you begin browsing through your search results and find an image you like, click on the tiny light bulb icon below the image to save it to your lightbox.  If you haven’t created one yet, you’ll be provided a link to create a new lightbox after clicking on the icon.

You can also click on the image to view a larger version along with additional details about the image including cost.  On this page you’ll have another opportunity to add the image to your lightbox by clicking on the “Add to Lightbox” link below the image.   You can also right click on the image or click on “Download a comp” to copy the watermarked image to place on your website or print document to test to see how the image looks where you’re proposing to use it.  If it passes the test, you can then decide to purchase the image.

Smaller web ready images are usually 1 to 2 credits which comes out be about $1.50 to $3.00 per image.   Some of the higher-end photos and larger image sizes are 5 credits and up, so when browsing through the images and photos you’re considering for use on your website, pay attention to how many credits the image costs.  Although most images will be in the 1 to 2 credit range, many can be more expensive and if you require a lot of images for your site, the costs can begin to add up, especially if you’re on a tight budget.

For website images, I find that the “XSmall” image size is usually sufficiently large enough for effective use on a website, however sometimes the “Small” size is needed.  If you’re not familiar with pixel sizes, there is a handy tool you can use to enter the pixel dimensions provided by istockphoto.com for each of the available image sizes,  http://auctionrepair.com/pixels.html

Just enter the width (the first number) and height pixels in the fields and click on the link, “Show me an image this size”.  A new window or tab in your browser will open with a generic blue image showing you the size the istockphoto.com image would be.

When purchasing an istockphoto.com image, make sure you do indeed select the correct image size because by default, they have the “Large” size image selected.  In the example above, if you didn’t click on the smaller image size to purchase,  you’d be buying a 15 credit “Large” image instead of a 2 credit “XSmall” image which is difference of about $20!

If you’re looking for a large number of images and graphics for your website, it’s a good idea to perform a number of different searches and browse through images and simply add the ones you think you may use to your lightbox.  It’s best to save the images to your lightbox because then you can easily view them all in one place and share your lightbox with other istockphoto.com members.  Once you feel you have enough images to choose from, you can open your lightbox and begin narrowing down which images you like best.
 

Sharing Your Lightbox

If you’re working with a web designer, you’ll want to share your lightbox with them so they can either assist you in determining which images would work best in which locations on your site and/or you can show them which images you’ve already purchased.

To share a lightbox, you’ll need to first open your saved lightbox(s).  At the very bottom of your browser window on any istockphoto.com page (when you’re logged into the site), you’ll see a dark gray ribbon bar.  In the bottom left corner of the ribbon, click on “My Account”.  A popup menu will rise and then click on “Lightboxes”.

On the next screen you’ll see all of your lightboxes.  To the far right, next to lightbox name you’ve decided to share, under the “Actions” header, click on the link, “Admin”.

Next, click on the button, “Choose a Member”.  You can either type in the person’s member name to grant them access to your lightbox or do a member search.  My member name, for example, is skozyk.

Once you’ve finalized which images you want, you can begin purchasing them from within your lightbox and downloading the images individually to your hard drive.  It’s usually best to create a new folder on your computer to download the images to where you can later zip the folder to store or send the web designer.

After you’ve downloaded all of your images and have zipped your images folder, if the folder file size is 10mb or under you can email the folder to the web designer.  If it’s larger, you’ll need to use a free service like www.YouSendIt.com to transfer the files to them.

Istockphoto.com is an indispensible resource for finding stock images, photos, and other types of media for legal use on your website.   It helps give your website or print project a very professional  appearance using high quality images at an affordable price.

1. From the main navigation menu, select “File” and in the dropdown menu, select “Info“. To the right of “Info” in “Account Information” pane, click on the “New Account” button.

2. After the “Auto Account Setup” window pops up, select the “Manually configure server settings or additional server types” radio button.

3. In the next window that appears, make sure the “Internet E-mail” radio button is selected.

4. The “Internet E-mail Settings” window should now appear. Enter your information as shown in following example making sure you select POP3 as your Account Type and use your entire email address as your user name. The incoming and outgoing servers should both be the same, mail.mydomain.com, where mydomian.com is your domain name, for example mail.itegritygroup.com. “Require logon using Secure Password Authentication (SPA)”, should NOT be checked.

5. Click on the “More Settings …” button.

6. Select the “Outgoing Server” tab.  Check the box next to “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication” and make sure the first radio button is selected, “Use same settings as my incoming mail server”.

7. Select the “Advanced” tab. You shouldn’t have to make changes to this page, but it’s a good idea to double check the settings. For POP3, the “Incoming server (POP3)” should be set to 110 and “Outgoing server (SMTP)” to 25.

8. At this point your email should be configured properly. Click the “OK“ button and you’ll be taken back to the “Internet E-mail Settings” window. Click on the “Test Account Settings” button and if a test email is able to be sent and received successfully then you’re finished. Click on the “Next“ button and then “Finish“ in the window that follows.

Note: If these setting don’t work, try using 587 in the Outgoing server (SMTP) field on the advanced tab instead of 25 as some ISPs block port 25.

Viewing natural search results without the bias of your own personal search habits is crucially important when determining how high your website ranks for a particular keyword or keyword phrase.  Performing a keyword search for a keyword related to your website will commonly bring up your website much higher in the search results than an ordinary web searcher or a new potential client searching for the products or services you offer that has never before visited your website.  This after all, is the type of individual and web traffic you’re trying to direct to your site and capture.

By default, Google will personalize your search results, even if you’re not logged into your Google account.  You’ll need to “unpersonalize” your search results to get an accurate picture of how your website is really ranking for the rest of the world.  To do effective SEO, this is an absolute.  So how do you turn it off?

There are a number of methods to do so, but one of the easiest is using the “&pws=0″ parameter.  First, you’ll need to turn off instant search results in Google.  To do this, perform any Google search through your Google search bar in your browser or by navigating to Google.com.  Next click on the “Instant in on” link next to the main Google search bar button.

When doing a Google search for a certain keyword or keyword phrase, you’ll see a search URL appear in your web browser’s address bar.

After you do a search for “disable personalized search” in Google, the following search URL will appear in your browser address bar:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=disable+personalized+search&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS350US375&ie=UTF-8

If you add the parameter “&pws=0″ to the end of the search URL it will return unpersonalized search results, in effect disabling personalized search results in Google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=disable+personalized+search&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS350US375&ie=UTF-8&pws=0

By clicking on the two links above, you should get two different results.  The first taking into account your search history, habits, present geographical location, and other personalized factors.  The second link, with the &pws=0 parameter added to the end of the search URL, will provide you more natural mostly unpersonalized results.  Geography can still play a role in search results bias even using the &pws=0 parameter, but all other primary factors will be disabled.  It’s also important to note that sometimes your personalized search results will closely match natural, unpersonalized search results, however this usually isn’t the case if you’ve already visited other websites related to your keyword search.

Unfortunately, the &pws=0 parameter will not permanently stay appended to all your future search queries, so you’ll need to add it again to the end of each new query you perform.  There is a way to use the Grease Monkey Firefox plugin to set your browser to always add the &pws=0 parameter to the end of your search queries and this a more advance topic you can learn about by vising the Grease Monkey website or doing a search for “Greasemonkey &pws=0“.

Disabling Google personalized search results is a critical component to performing accurate SEO for your website.  Appending the &pws=0 parameter to the end of your search URLs will give you a quick and easy way to depersonalize your search results providing you the ability to view the natural, unbiased search results for the keywords for which you’re trying to rank highly.