Your business should look at your NAP now, and not the type of nap we talked about in our blog called “You could have a Nap room in your office space Toronto” where we told readers about The Huffington Post having a nap room for its staff. The type of nap you have to consider today is N.A.P., or Name, Address and Phone number. So now you are reading this blog and saying “but I already have a company name, address and phone number.” Our response is “Does Google Plus know it?”
The key to local Internet marketing these days is not just having a website and having it tagged with keywords. You have to let the the Internet world (particularly your potential local customers) know where your business is, starting with a Google Plus Local Page. Having a Google Plus Local Page will help your customers find you more efficiently when they are searching for you. But in order to improve your search rankings, make certain that your NAP is consistent on any website, directory or even review sites like Yelp. Your website popularity has a major role as to how well a Google Plus places you on business-page ranks. But if your NAP is different on other sources, Google Plus will not see that popularity.
Let us first help you to determine whether your small business is even eligible to have a Google Plus Local Page. Based on the Google Plus guidelines, here are a few of the main things you have to show Google in order to maintain your Google Plus Local Page.
- Does your business have a physical address? This means no P.O. boxes.
- Does your business have a local phone number? Not an 800 type number.
- Does your business do offline business? If you only do online business, you will not qualify.
It is important to note that when trying to market to a local audience, having Toronto office space outside of where your target market is located will not help you. If you want to be seen as having downtown Toronto office space, than be sure to actually have a proper downtown address.
One other thing you should consider before setting up a Google Plus Local Page is to actually read the guidelines. Do not try to “trick” your way around Google’s Guidelines as that could have a negative effect on not just how your business is found locally, but on other Google products as well.