If you haven’t claimed your Google Maps listing yet, you should. It’s easy to do and will further your presence online, even if just by a little bit!
You will not want to put this off for any amount of time. If you haven’t claimed your listing, it is at risk of being hijacked by competitors or spammers. Also, claiming your listing will feed Google very important information about your business – information that has been verified by you, the owner or manager of your business.
How do you go about claiming your listing? It’s easy.
Start by going to http://maps.google.com.
Once there, type your business name into the search bar and hit submit. You may need to include your town name in the search text to get your business to show in the results if there are many others with similar names.
Search for your business in Google Maps first, find your listing, then click on it to show your business on the map
Once you have found your listing, click on it to show your business location and details on the map. If your business listing is not yet claimed, there will be a small bit of text at the bottom of the bubble that will tell you so.
Click on the "Claim your business" link to do so.
Once you click on the “Claim your business” link, you’ll basically go through a process of setting up an account at the Google Local Business Center. This will involve also setting up a Google account if you haven’t already done so. At this point all you need to do is just follow the instructions on the screen.
When filling out your business information, be sure that everything is accurate! Even one small mistake in your listings information can mislead hundreds if not thousands of people who are trying to seek you out on the web.
By going through this whole process of claming your map listing, you will be verifying that Google is storing accurate information regarding your business.
Enough reading, now go and claim your listing!
