Mar 11 2010

Choose the Correct Local Listing Categories

*The following is the guest post by Emily Thompson*

The Google Local Listing has grown in importance more and more in recent time. In many instances, the local 7-pack, consisting on local listings, is appearing at the top of a search results page, above even organic listings. This placement creates huge opportunities for small businesses to gain visibility and traffic on the web.

There are many components that work together to create an optimized, high-ranking listing. One of the key elements of an optimized local listing is the category section Google provides. These categories classify your business according to industry and they can have a profound impact on which searches your listing appears in.

One of the challenges is that it can sometimes be tricky to know how your industry is categorized in the Google Local Business Center.  For example, say you are a lawyer, so you search for lawyer, but you aren’t sure what other synonyms Google might assign to your trade. In order to assist you with discovering the most targeted categories, local search expert Mike Blumenthal has a great tool in beta right now that aggregates all the category options and allows you to see the ones that apply directly to you. Check it out. Google LBC Categories Preview Beta

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Simply enter your query in the search box, and a list of all the current Google category options will be on your left, and synonyms to your search term will be displayed on the right.

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This tool is very useful to get a quick view of all of the different category choices and to give you new ideas and synonyms you might not have considered before. Utilizing resources like this helps create an optimized listing and achieve that goal of reaching the 7-pack!

Emily Thompson is the Online Marketing Coordinator for Kutenda. Kutenda provides the tools and resources small businesses need to be successful online and grow their business.

4 Responses to “Choose the Correct Local Listing Categories”

  1. Jack | Online marketing blog says:
    March 11, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    Great tool! Although I just have my blog and I don’t know how to leverage this tool……yet.

  2. 518 Designs - Albany NY says:
    March 30, 2010 at 7:51 pm

    Google local has been a major source of traffic both for us and for clients. We have used other keyword suggestion tools to help in optimizing local listings and this tool isn’t too far off the mark from what other tools show. Would love to see a tool that ties in suggestions with some sort of metric for projected searches, even if it was at a nationl and not local level.

  3. Martijn Beijk says:
    May 6, 2010 at 10:27 pm

    would be cool to have it at an international level and not perse at national or local level.

  4. penumbuh rambut says:
    March 7, 2011 at 4:04 am

    hmm its reali cool about
    Google local has been a major source of traffic both for us and for clients. We have used other