HOW TO: Google Maps Local claim your business

Google Maps is the first site that any business should visit before starting mobile or geospecific marketing. Google Maps Local provides a range of tools to make it easy for anyone to check their details and claim your business.

Why do you need to claim your business on Google Maps?

We all know the phenomenon that is searching for something on Google from a Mobile - so as more people have Android phones or iPhones or other smartphones, more people will use Mobile Internet for Search. Google is already enabling Search results limited to the users current location so it’s important to keep your listing up to date.

For anyone into SEO then Google Maps is another good place to promote your business and increase your keywords, link juice and so on.

In many cases, Google Maps data is sourced from 3rd party directories and it could be possible that your business is listed, but with information from some other website. In this example, you can see the Google Maps has detail for mmchanel not mmCHANNEL - which is a misspelling and the map data is from a 3rd party website.

Easy Guide to Claim your business

Go to Google Maps - try http://local.google.co.uk/ or http://local.google.cm and search for your business. Then click on the link for Business Owner?

If you have a new business or can’t find your listing then go to http://www.google.com/local/add/

Then you can choose to edit your listing, suspend your listing or add a new business at that location.

There are a number of steps to claim your business including updating your business details, writing more blurb about your company and at th end you will need to verify you as the correct business contact. You can do this by phone, text or snail mail (takes about 3 weeks).

Meet the author

Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.
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