#Winning with Google Places — PubCon Vegas

Welcome back to our PubCon liveblog coverage. We’re about to get jiggy with Google Places optimization. Brian Combs of Ionadas Local is presenting for us. He promises us there will be no more Charlie Sheen references from this point on.

The look and feel of Google Places changes weekly. About a year ago, Google started blending the Google Places algorithm with the traditional algo. Optimizing for Places is a lot like optimizing a site.

When should you optimize? If you want any of the following:

• Website visits
• Phone calls
• Foot traffic

Find the right keywords! Just like traditional SEO. Look at long tail. Find a balance between traffic, competitiveness, semantic appropriateness, current ranking.

Before you start, find out: does the listing already exist?If not, create it. Use a unique Google account, don’t let a personal Gmail account be the selected email. Verify by phone or email.

Some tips:

• P.O. boxes might be depreciated by Google.
• Use keywords and locations throughout, but don’t overuse them.
• Upload images and/or videos. Link to your YouTube channel.
• Be careful with keyword stuffing in the company name/organization field.
• Google is cracking down on this. Using an 800 number is probably a disadvantage.
• Categories: you have up to five. At least one of them should be a standard Google category. Don ‘t use city names or geographic modifiers, you could be penalized.
• Service areas: Plumbers, for example, would use this. You can hide your actual address if you work out of your house. When Google first created this, it was broken, and is now getting better.
• Additional details fields: This is a good place to use longer tail keywords.

Jessica Lee is the founder and chief creative for bizbuzzcontent Inc., a marketing boutique that focuses on digital content strategy and professional writing services for businesses.

See Jessica's author page for links to connect on social media.