I often do a google search and I see my competitors listed next to a google map at the top of search results. How can I get my business listed there as well?

ANSWER: To add a business listing to Google maps for local search, go to:

http://www.google.com/local/add/lookup?welcome=false&hl=en-US&gl=US

Select the country where your business is located and fill in you business contact information and details. For category you will choose a word or phrase that best describes your business. You can also add additional categories for additional key words.

After filling out the form and selecting your categories, click next to continue to the next step.

On this page you can select your business hours and methods of payments you that you accept. You can also add up to 10 photos to include with your listing. You also have the ability to add a video to your listing such as a commercial or other promotional video to help promote your business. And finally on this page you can add additional details for your business such as additional amenities or other information you would like to add.

After you have filled out all of your information and added any photos and/or videos you would like on your listing, click the submit button and you will be taken to the final step which is to validate your listing.

On this page you can see a preview of your business listing and you will choose how you would like to verify your listing. There are a few options available, you can choose to verify by phone, SMS or by postcard. The postcard option is not recommended since it takes between 2-3 weeks. The best option would be either phone or SMS since they are an instant way to verify your listing. Once you get your verification number from which ever form you chose, enter the number in the verification field and click Finish and you listing will be posted with in one day.

Jimmy’s Answer

What Keywords should I put on my website? This is a great question and one that is often over looked.

It is not a good idea to assume you know what people are looking for in search engines and targeting the wrong search terms will cost you tons of traffic. You should target keywords that people are searching for frequently. You must also make sure the keywords you are targeting are relevant to the market you are targeting.

A great tool to use when doing keword research is Google’s Adwords Keyword tool. (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) This is free to use and very informative. Simply enter a keyword or phrase into the form and click Get keyword ideas.

The Approximate Volume column shows how many people searched for that keyword in the prevois month. The rows of keywords shows you similar keywords as well as how many search each keyword and term received in the previous month.

Playing with this keyword tool and analyzing the results is a great way to decide what keywords to put on your website.

Another useful tip is to create more pages and fill them with useful content. Each new page can target a different keyword phrase. The more content you have and the more keywords and phrases you target in your title tags, descriptions and body text the more traffic you will get. Content is King! Fill your site with useful relevant content and your traffic #’s will increase. Good luck!

I am a real estate agent in Maine and I created my website a couple weeks ago but when I search for it in Google I do not come up. Am I missing something?

Jimmy’s Answer

Why am I not showing up in Google? This is a very common question. Many people are under the misconceptions that 1) a site will immediately appear in the Google rankings after it is placed online and 2) Simply having a page online is all that is needed to rank high for your desired search terms.

I could write a thousand pages on search engine optimization and how to climb to the top of the rankings. The following should answer your question “Why am I not showing up in Google?” but I also encourage you to continue your research and read everything you can on how search engines work and what you can do to climb the rankings.

The first thing you must consider is what words Google sees on and in your pages. It is common for people to wonder why a certain search term does not bring up their site in Google while that search term actually doesn’t even appear on the pages of the site. Google is an amazing tool that allows a user to search billions of pages in seconds. However, Google is not magic. Google can not rank your site for search terms if you do not have those words on your pages and in your code. If the search term you are targeting is “Maine Real Estate agent” you should be sure to have “Maine Real Estate Agent” throughout your site. Some important places to have these words are 1) in your title tag, 2) description tag, 3) body of your website 4) h1 and h2 tags.

Placing targeted keywords and phrases in your pages and making your site search engine friendly is known as on page search engine optimization. Once your site is search engine optimized Google will need to find out your site exists. You may ask yourself again, Why I am I not showing up in Google?

Google is constantly crawling the internet reading pages, storing a cache of them for their search tool and following links to other pages. When a person does a search in Google, the site does not search every page across the internet and then spit back results. Instead, the search engine looks in its database of cached pages. If Google has not crawled and cached your site, it will not appear in the search results.

The best way to get your site crawled is to get other websites to link to your pages. The next time Google crawls the pages that link to your site it will crawl onto your site and cache your pages.

If you have your targeted keywords throughout your pages and Google has a cache of your site you will then start appearing in Google search results. However, this does not necessarily mean you will be on the first page of search results.

Once Google knows your pages exist your search engine optimization mission has just begun. To appear above your competition you will need to build more links to your site from other websites and continue ongoing search engine optimization strategy. When searching for “Maine Real Estate Agent” in Google the search results produce 456,000 + pages. To appear top 10 you will need to have better on and off page search engine optimization than the rest of the pages. Best of Luck!