I recently found a small change to Google Places, that Google hasn't really advertised much, which impacted my website's visibility on Maps. I imagine this will also effect most people on this forum who have a website and whose business is based at home, but don't have clients visiting their home.
Lately I have noticed my website disappearing form Google Maps or appearing some miles away (in the middle of Wentworth golf course). Obviously not good for being found by clients, so I did a bit of research on what might be wrong. Turns out that when you fill in the Google Places form (do this if you haven't already!) if you click the box ' Yes - this business serves customers at their locations', rather than 'No - all customers come to the business location', you should now click the box 'Do NOT show my business address on my Maps listing', but still fill in the Post code and radius for places you serve. This is a bit counter intuitive as I want my address shown, but now it may not show at all if you don't click the 'Do Not Show' box.
Your website will now float in the general area of your address and just have the nearest town name rather than number and street (remember it might take a day or two). This works fine for me and I imagine most designers and landscapers whose business address is also their home.
www.GreenGardenDesign.com
Views: 48
Replies
Thanks for that - interesting to know as I'm just updating my listing (very overdue) and there seem to be a number of new things to get to grips with. Currently my page is "pending"!
Even though on natural search I would come up on the first page, I never came up on maps, so I am hoping this will rectify the situation. Thanks.