Everyone  knows Google is one of the major Search Engines out there , in fact, it’s the most popular  at  75% of the market share in the UK.

Most people also associate Google with large national searches, great for when you want to find niche suppliers somewhere in the UK or you want to compare prices from a few stores to make sure you’re getting the best deal available .

But did you know that over the past few years Google has done more and more to help you find local companies that can offer the products and services you’re looking for.

Google recognised some time ago that if a searcher typed a search term i.e. what they were interested in finding AND a town, for example if I want to find web designers in Doncaster I would type in something like ‘web design doncaster’ it was because they wanted to find a local web designer – fairly obvious I suppose.

But what used to happen is that even though the searcher included the town name in the search query, they’d be greeted with a Google top ten that consisted mainly of the large national chains , not ideal when they wanted a local  supplier   to start with!

So a few years ago Google introduced something  called Google maps so you could see where companies were based on a map , which turned into Google Local Business Centre which in turn is now Google Places launched a few weeks ago.

The point of Google Places is to provide relevant business details to users, and the best bit? You can optimise it and put in all the relevant information you want people to know about your business, upload images and videos (which would definitely be a good idea to show people examples of your work) show customer reviews which all leads to providing a richly detailed overview of your business which should lead to searchers either clicking through to your website or picking up the phone to talk to you. Which at the end of the day is why you have a web presence in the first place!

So, do your business a favour and review your listing, you can appear in a map like the one shown above purely because Google has found you in a business directory not because you’ve done anything proactive to appear in the map.

If this is the case, it’s important that you claim your listing (which you can do by clicking the link that says ‘business owner?’), this is important because it allows you fully optimise your listing and also it stops other people claiming it!!

So, if you want to appear to local searchers for your products and services make sure you claim and optimise your Google Places listing or talk to someone who can offer you the right seo services or get yourself on an seo course.