As a local business owner in today’s day and age, you know that it’s important to have an online presence because that’s where your customers are. In fact, over 97% of people who use the Internet (240 million users in the US alone) conduct research online before buying goods and services. Hopefully you’ve gone to Google Places to claim your free business listing. This listing appears in Google Map searches and may appear on regular Google. This allows you to share accurate information about your business such as your hours of operation, photos and videos with prospective customers and clients.
Google recently announced Boost. Boost enables business owners to easily create online search ads from within their Google Places account. No ongoing management is needed after the initial set up, and the initial launch is currently available to select local businesses in about a dozen geographical areas in the US.
Boost ads are will appear in the “Sponsored Links” section of Google.com and Google Maps search result pages. For example, if you’re a restaurant owner in San Francisco who has signed up for Boost, your ad may show up when someone does a related search like the one below, indicating a cuisine and location that matches yours. Beyond basics like your company name, address, phone number and website, your ad may also display reviews you’ve received, an average star rating and a link to your Places page to help potential customers find additional useful information about your business. When a map appears alongside the results, a blue pin will help folks quickly find your location on the map. Businesses using Google Tags will also see their yellow tag appear in the ad.
To create your ad, all that is required is a short business description, a web or Place page, your business categories and a monthly budget. From there, the Google Boost system automatically sets up your ad campaign – figuring out the relevant keywords from your listing that will trigger your ad to appear on Google and Google Maps searches, and how to get the most out of the budget you allotted. You’ll only pay when a potential customer actually clicks on your ad, and you can also view basic ad performance data from your Google Places dashboard.
Here is an example of the simple sign up page within Google Places, which takes just a few minutes to complete. To make the process even easier, the “description” and “categories” fields may be pre-populated with suggestions based on the information you provided on the Place page for your business.
It is hoped that Boost will provide busy local business owners with a quick and easy way to share information about themselves with the people who look for them online. Placement in the “Sponsored Links” section of the page will, as always, depend on factors such as your ad’s relevance and quality. Boost does not affect the ranking of the free, organic business listings in any way, just like normal Google search results and their AdWords Pay Per Click program.
While this new program is early in its roll out nationwide if it has anywhere near the same success as AdWords on traffic generation it will be a great benefit to local businesses in a wide variety of market segments. However, despite the programs attractiveness never forget your first goal should be a highly optimized website that ranks well and a well optimized Google Places listing. When your budget runs dry for Pay Per Click you want to have effective listings to ensure you continue to receive web traffic!
