Guidelines On How To Represent You Local Business On Google
If the company that you perform SEO for operates locally from a storefront or the business drives to the locations of customers in order to conduct services, then the site qualifies for what is known as Google My Business listing. For the local companies like these, Google has its own set of guidelines which govern what you must and must not do when managing and creating these listings.
The Basic Principles
- Make sure you are first eligible for a Google My Business index. You will need to use a physical address, even if you have to use a home address, and you have to serve your customers face-to-face, from a location such as a retail store or at their homes such as a carpet cleaning service
- Accurately and honestly represent every aspect of your local business. This data should include the name of the business, the phone number, address, business categories, website address, your operating hours, and any other important features
Things To Avoid
- Creating Google My Business listings for the entities that are not eligible
- Misrepresenting any of the main business information, which includes “stuffing” the name fo the business with service or geographic keywords, or creating a listing using a fake address
- Using a virtual office or PO box in place of a street address
- Abusing the review part of the Google My Business listing, in the way of using fake reviews about your business, or using negative and fake ones on your competitors
- Novice and costly mistakes can stem from not reading the fine print of Google’s guidelines
- If you are interested in ranking on the Bing Search Engine, you should also find out about their guidelines. It is polite and sensible
