Tips on How to Control Google Local Listings

Recent online statistics show that of all the search engines, Google controls up to 65% of the market share. It is therefore the most useful platform when it comes to ranking and subsequently driving traffic to your websites thus increase the volume of your sales or value of your businesses. Google's local listings empower you to accurately provide your businesses physical location address. This in return enables Google to list your businesses depending on your local area and afterwards divert traffic from the same area into your website. Clearly, this is a strategy which is designed to help small businesses achieve their full potential. However, Google willy only list your business correctly after you have accurately submitted your information for even a slight error is enough to negatively affect your listing. To keep you updated, here is a detailed guide on how to control Google Local Listings.

 
Claim your listings.
There are far too many local businesses which can easily be merged because they have an identical name or share a building hence a somewhat similar address. Under such circumstances, Google tends to merge all such addresses thereby your local listings are affected. The case may worsen should your physical address or business name match with that of a known spammer. If you do not take the initiative of claiming your listings, internet users looking for your business will most likely be directed towards a wrong address or website. 
Local Submissions.
Besides the information you provide, Google Local looks into numerous other factors when looking to list your business websites. One of such factors is the number of local submissions you have made and takes up the data provided by such agencies to determine the credibility of your businesses on the web. Do not ignore local submissions simply because of their inferiority because they are a strategic way to control your Google Local listings.Build citations from authoritative sources.
Google definitely knows it can rely on authoritative sources to come up with Local listings. There are more than enough authoritative sources, notably websites, which you can strive to build citations from. Such citations improve your web credibility hence getting you in control of your Google Local listings. In fact, with huge credibility, it becomes a lot easier to catch Google's attention whenever you want to modify your physical address. 
Encourage online reviews.
An interesting way of controlling Google Local listings is by encouraging your customers to post their reviews and experiences on your website. A host of positive reviews will improve your online reputation and portray the brand as trustworthy. Google undoubtedly takes note of such reviews and looks forward to listing your business in its database. Do not also forget to respond to reviews that call for your response.
Make use of hyper local listings.
Online facilities such as foursquare and Gowalla and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter allow you to gain local relevance hence improving your credibility. Ensure that all the information you provide on such sites regarding the physical location of your business corresponds with the data that you feed into Google.

You can also control your Google Local listings by participating on Google Boost and observing on-page optimization.

James writes for www.make-a-web-site.com on topics such How to Control Google Local Listings, how to beat Google Penguin updates, hosting and all matters regarding website ranking.