Franchise Owners: If you don’t have a Google Places Account for your franchise, you should set one up right away. Google Places is how you get your franchise to display on Google Maps. Not having a Google Places Account is like not having a listing in the Yellow Pages back in the 1980’s. Setting up a Google Places Account doesn’t take much time and it’s a great way to advertise your business – for free. Just go to places.google.com to set yours up.
If you already have a Google Places Account, to get the most out of it, you need to optimize it. Optimizing means to “teach” Google to display your listing when someone enters your search phrase. For more on how to pick your search phrase, see my article on “The “Key” to SEO – Selecting the right Keywords”.
The purpose of today’s article is to give you a few tips to help your Google Places Account get listed on Page One of Google’s search results.
Google Places Optimization Tip #1:
The first trick is to find the right keyword phrase for your franchise. For more on how to do this, see my article titled “The Key to SEO – Selecting the Right Keywords”.
As an example for this article, if you own a pizza franchise in Anytown, VA, then your keyword phrase should probably be “pizza restaurant Anytown, VA”. The first half of the phrase describes WHAT your business is and would be something that a person would enter into a search engine (ie. “pizza restaurant”). The second half is WHERE you are located (ie. “Anytown, VA”).
Google Place Optimization Tip #2:
Once you have the right keyword phrase, change your Google Places description so that it includes that exact phrase as the first few words, like this:
“Pizza Restaurant in Any Town, VA. Our pizza restaurant sells pizza, subs, gyros and Italian dishes. Pizza delivery and carry-out available. Serving Any Town, Major City and Tiny Suburb, VA.”
Google Places Optimization Tip #3:
Next, make sure your Google Places Categories are all optimized. You get five categories to choose from. The first one has to be from Google’s pre-determined categories. In our example, we would select “Pizza Restaurant”. The next four categories can be any phrase you want. You may want to try different variations of phrases that some would enter into a search engine to find what you sell, like: “pizza delivery”, “pizza coupons”, “Italian food” and “Italian restaurant”.
In Google Places, this is where you set-up your Company Description and Categories.
Google Places Optimization Tip #4:
There is a section at the end of the Google Places set-up screen called “Additional Details”. This is a section that allows you to add any additional details about your company. This is a good place to reinforce your keywords again. Remember, most people when looking for a business like yours will enter keywords that describe what they need. Google uses the example “Parking available : Yes”. “Parking” is probably not something I would search for if I was looking for pizza. However, I might search Google for “Pizza delivery”, so “Pizza Delivery : Yes” would be a good option. You might also consider phrases like “Restaurant type : Italian”, “Carry-out : yes”, “Pizza coupons : Available on Website”, etc… If you need ideas for keywords, your Pay-per-Click data is an excellent source. If you don’t have any Pay-per-Click data, check out our $900 Google Trial.
This is the “Additional Details” section in the Google Places Account set up.
Google Places Optimization Tip #5:
Add a link to your Google Places pages to your website. Once your Google Places page is up, in the upper right corner, there is a link called “Link”. If you click that link, it will give you the URL for your Google Places Page.
Google Places Optimization Tip #6:
Get your customers to add reviews to your Google Places page. The easiest way to do this is to ask your best customers to go to your website, click the link you made in Tip #5, and add a review. These reviews make your page stand out and people tend to trust someone with 10 reviews and a 4.8 star rating. Never add any reviews yourself!
Google Places Optimization Tip #7:
Add several images to your Google Places Account. I like to rename the images to they match the company’s keyword phrase. In other words, if the image you are about to add is “IMG1023.jpg”, then rename it something like “pizza-restaurant-anytown-va-1.jpg” before adding it to your Google Places Account.
Google Places Optimization Tip #8:
Add a YouTube video. Google owns YouTube, so if you have a video on YouTube, add it. If you can, make the name of the video your keyword phrase – ie. “Pizza Restaurant Anytown, VA”.
Google Places Optimization Tip #9:
Make sure your Google Places Account is complete. Fill out all the fields you can, including the “Hours of operation” and “Payment options”.
If your listing doesn’t show up in a month or two for your keyword phrase, then try a new keyword phrase and re-optimize your Places Account. If you want to get even more from your Google Places Account, call us to find out how we can use Google Pay-per-Click to increase the traffic to your Google Places Account.
I hope this helps.
Thinking of buying a franchise?
Why not? Many people have the urge to start and run their own business. I am involved in career counselling and meet people who express this desire very frequently. The most common barrier that is raised is that people do not quite know what exactly they wish to do or what is involved. I also believe that even if that barrier is resolved, most people do not have all of the skills at their fingertips to get a start-up business off the ground to be a viable business. By viable I mean a business that fulfils their desire and, most importantly, creates a sustainable income for them.
Having a good idea for a product or service does not mean you have a viable business.
Franchise – A viable option worth considering
One very real option that is worthwhile considering is buying into a franchise. The benefits are well documented. Franchises come in all shapes, sizes, costs and commitment. If you have never looked at the options then I believe you will be quite surprised at the breadth and depth of these. There are many website that will show the varied options available. They vary from low skill to very high skill businesses and vary in prices from a modest investment to many thousands of pounds.
The Pros and Cons of franchises
Firstly let me outline the benefits of buying into a franchise.
You are buying into a proven business model. That is to say that the seller (known as the franchisor) has already shown that their product or service works. By that I mean that they have demonstrated a working version of their business. Specifically they will have customers and show that people buy the product or service. Most importantly that they are able to demonstrate the profitability of the business that they are offering to franchise.
They will have a documented ‘system’ that is part of their offering. The concept is that by following this system, you too can create a similar business.
They will train you as part of your package. This training should be comprehensive and cover all aspects of the business. This would normally cover such things as marketing the service to find and attract customers, hiring, training your employees, financial control & book keeping, pricing and of course the detail of how to successfully deliver the product or service that your will be offering. Additionally they should keep you up to date with any new ideas and innovative approaches.
In other words they should train and equip you with all the necessary skills to successfully run your business and create profit.
Many franchises are well known global brands. Selling under their banner gives far greater instant credibility to your ‘little start up business’.
This is a win-win situation. The individuals who buy into a franchise are of course highly motivated as they have invested their own money. It is in the interest of the franchisor to help you succeed as they will enjoy a return on your business over time by charging and ongoing ‘Royalty’ fee.
Now let me look at the disadvantages of franchises.
You are locked into a contract that often does not allow you to have much flexibility on your offering. Taking a simple example, if your franchise was a well known global burger supplier, you could not start selling your own burger variants to your customers in your outlet. This is fair and reasonable as it would start to cloud the offering of the well known brand. This is not usually a problem, but it underlines the lack of true entrepreneurial spirit that some people find restrictive.
The on-going royalty payments are typically in the region of 7 to 10% of your turnover. Note ‘turnover’ not profit. That means that you could be turning over a large sum but making very little profit, particularly in your initial months or during tough times. However, you still need to continue to pay the franchisor their fee based on your turnover. That can be crippling if there is very little profit.
Franchisors do vary in their offering quality, support and even their ethical standards. Like all things in life there are the good, the bad and the ugly. Make sure that you do ‘due diligence’ in researching the franchisor before you part with any money. You can always walk away from a franchise if it is not working for you but that is an expensive path that no one should take. You cannot normally start up in competition to your franchisor as you will normally sign away the right to do that when you sign the franchise agreement.
How bad can it get? Well I purchased a franchise and things were fine until another company purchased the franchisor. That is a take-over by a new controlling company. Overnight I suddenly had a new franchisor. That is not necessarily a problem, but in this particular case the new owners had some very questionable ethical standards and business practices that were disastrous. They misrepresented the truth for years, they encouraged interworking with other people they falsely represented as good franchisees, who not only had expired franchise agreements but were in growing and massive debt to the franchiser. That was only the tip of the iceberg. Read the facts about this global franchisor at http://www.cdicorp.info
Due Diligence. When you approach a franchisor they will sell all the positive aspects of their offering. Nothing wrong with that – they are trying to sell their franchise. But that paints a one sided view. They may point you towards some franchises that are working well. Again that is fine and you should visit them and quiz them. However, what I believe you must do is to visit other franchisees too. Ideally, some old and some new and definitely a cross section of those that are doing less well. These people are likely to tell you their side of the picture with no-holds barred. What you must do is take a balanced view on the issues and problems that are raised. Are they just winging because they are not really up to the task or have they a justified issue that the franchisor is failing to address. Make no mistake about it, running a successful business is no easy task, even with help from your franchisor. So try to distinguish between real issues and individuals inadequacies.
Research the company on the web. I do not mean look at their website, I mean search on Google for the ‘the franchise name’ Views or Comments or Opinions. You may be surprised what you find out. Again take the balanced view about what you read.
Last of all do not think that any business is easy or simple to run. Whilst franchises have a better success rate than simple start-up businesses, they still fail. It takes hard work and a balance of many skills. However, many do succeed. Good luck.
Definitely a great post! This will help a lot of small business owners out there who would want to try Google Places! Kudos for sharing this informative article!
another great post. not many businesses are aware of the importance of a google places page.
http://www.cleanmoresavemore.com