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One underused and often neglected method to draw online traffic to your website is the optimization of Google Places Listings. Many local business owners of all industries (from labor to white office jobs) often ignore creating and developing a Google Place Listing because they figure it is time-consuming, inefficient, and less effective than other online strategies.

In fact, by neglecting the promotion of your business on this precious Google asset, you are potentially losing profits, damaging your reputation, and falling behind the competition. Optimizing your Google Places Listings is essential to maximize your business and its online potential.

What is Google Place Listings, you might ask? It’s a unique Google service that provides businesses with the platform to share vital information about themselves, including their services, products, and, most importantly, the location of its store or stores. Essentially, this Google asset aims to expand the audience and customer base of businesses, boutiques, and retail stores that sell their products in person and online.

These are, of course, the significant benefits of Google Place Listings. There are, of course, PLENTY of benefits:

• It’s free. That’s right; you won’t spend a cent on it.
• You don’t have to be tech-savvy to use the service. It’s easy, and you’ll know what to do once you’ve started.
• Thanks to mobile phones and the Google app, you can manage, edit and promote your Google Places Listings anytime and anywhere.
• You’ll connect with millions of Google users. It’s the number one search engine in the world (and the driver of all online marketing campaigns and algorithms), so you’ll be missing out on plenty of customers.
• Streamlined analytics means your business will be found easily during searches.
• Your online and offline reputation will increase if your service and information are well presented.
• Your customers will be satisfied with your business, and that is vital to establishing reliable connections.
• Potential to extend your brand online to new buyers.
• Seamlessly integrates with your overall online marketing campaign.
• Connects with customers through simple mobile phone use.
• Your visibility increases thanks to the connection to Google Maps.

It’s part of social media’s “big three”, but LinkedIn has always been a little bit behind the eight ball for businesses compared to Facebook and Twitter. But over the last few years, it’s made strides to get ahead and help businesses grow their brand identity, their experiences, and their ideals. Within the world of LinkedIn, there are a few nifty ways in which you can promote your business on the world’s third-biggest social media platform.

Post recommendations/Give endorsements to people you know

The first part of networking is to make the first move. Posting a recommendation for one of your clients shows a willingness to establish a connection. Same too when it comes to endorsing businesses and clients’ skills. It highlights the value of your client’s/business’s talents and abilities. Be the first to make the move.

Showcase your company page.

Creating a company page is the best way to kick off a connection with everyone on LinkedIn. And remember, everyone on LinkedIn is either a potential client, business partner or customer. You have to think of ways to connect with them. A company page is much like Facebook’s profile page or Twitter handle. The idea is to create a central hub that provides a complete overview of your business and highlights what you are all about. From here, you can build a following and establish a credible reputation.

Promote your expertise and business.

There is no point in having a company page without having anything on it. That means loading it up with anything and everything you can is ideal. Upload videos, photos, projects, and works of what your business has done in the past to highlight your best work. Secondly, continually posting blog posts from your website or posts about your industry is great for establishing connections and showing future customers, partners, and so forth that you’re engaged in your company and with them.

Join industry groups

How do you connect with people in real life? You go to parties, functions, and public places and join groups. The same applies to LinkedIn: joining groups involved in your industry is a fantastic way of establishing customers and partners for the future. More importantly, it’s about networking.

Use SEO to boost your company page on search engines

Like boosting your website through SEO Melbourne, you should increase your LinkedIn company page. Using keywords that match your website will bring potential clients, customers, and partners to your LinkedIn page and will connect with you.

Make quality Connections

The bread and butter of LinkedIn: making connections to potential clients, customers, and business partners. But make sure you are connecting with quality connections that are going to help grow and network your business. Look for these two things when making a connection: a professional and respectable history and one with more than 150 connections. More connections mean more potential networking for you.

….but don’t just make a connection

What’s the point of making a connection if you aren’t going to connect with them? When a connection is established, don’t wait for them to message you; go ahead and get in touch with them first. And when making connections with direct messaging, make it personal; that way, it shows you are a) a human and b) treating your partners and customers as a person instead of numbers.

When establishing their online presence, businesses will often choose to “divide and conquer” by separating their SEO efforts from their social media platforms without realizing that these two techniques can work hand in hand with one another. While they may be different in the way each is put in place, they have more in common than meets the eye, and when combined with strength, they can become the most resilient pillar of your online campaign.

Quality of Social Media Audience

It’s all about the number of followers anyways, right? Although this may be common, believe, we must debunk this myth. Yes, the number of followers you have impacts your credibility, social “proof,” and overall online presence–but it is not the only factor that Google considers when drafting its ranking techniques. Just like with content, Google examines the “quality” of followers you have. So while some companies may purchase thousands of robotic followers regarding SEO services Ballarat, you would be better off working and nurturing your way to an active organic audience that interacts with your brand.

Creating External Interaction Through Links

One of the best ways to boost your SEO and establish yourself as a content genius in the eyes of Google is to have your content shared through external links. Social media is a phenomenal way to get your content recognized by members of your industry through the effective use of sharing, retweeting, posting, comments, and hashtags. These tools allow you to reach a good portion of your target audience and anyone who follows them. Utilizing hashtags to categorize your content gives you a likelier chance to be seen by these sources and, thus, a likelier opportunity for them to share your content on their websites—and just like that, you have built an external link without having to solicit anyone!

Social Media Platforms Are Smaller Versions of Search Engines

If you are solely focused on the results that appear on Google, you may need to rethink your strategy. These days, when consumers are interested in a brand or service, they head to social media platforms and perform a search that will lead them to more related content. For example, if a discussion about your industry is happening on Twitter, chiming in to interact will not only boost your voice as a knowledgeable source but will also have you appear on Twitter’s search results should someone look for that topic or hashtag.

Likewise, on a more visual platform like Instagram, businesses such as restaurants, boutiques, and design companies utilize location tags and hashtags to build the buzz around their brand. Instagram’s search tool ends up being used as a more marginalized version of Google Images, not only showcasing photos from websites but from other users themselves who have used these products or services.

Moral of the story: Google is not the only search engine you need to be optimizing!

While it is never wrong to focus on creating fresh and compelling content for your website to boost your SEO, you should never leave social media platforms on the back burner. Instead, aim to combine both of these tools for ultimate optimization. You will end up having more leads appear on both ends, boosting rapport among your industry and climbing up in rankings before you know it!