Google Business Listing – No Address Needed

Today I want to share with you some news for all those small businesses out there who work from home and don’t want their personal address listed on Google maps when searching for their business. This applies to all the pet sitters and dog walkers out there who visit the client’s house rather than the client coming to them. You still want your business listed in a Google Search, because that’s the first place a typical user would go to find a service they’re interested in. Over 80% of people use search engines to find local information!1 The new Pawfect Lounge: Pet Connection website will help a lot too!

Claiming Google Business Listing

Haven’t claimed your Google Business Listing? Go do that now. I’ll wait…. Now you have an immeasurable advantage over your competition who are not listed yet! There are many websites that let people perform a search for a particular business in a particular area or location. So you’ll want to find all the popular business listing sites and make sure your information is up-to-date and consistent on each. For more information on making your Google Business Listing great, check out the article at SmallBizTrends.

Google More Local and Social with Nearby Search

Google announced it will integrate a real-time search of tweets, blogs, and news events into its results. This means that small businesses must be more aware of their online reputation, since both positive and negative feedback and opinions will be very visible to more and more people. Also, local search has become even easier. You can tell Google to use your computer’s or device’s location or a custom location by default when performing ‘Nearby’ searches. You set this in ‘Search Options Panel’. For more information, see Google Goes More Local on SmallBizTrends.

LBC Service Area Instead of Address

Lastly, Google will now allow businesses to opt out of having their personal, home-based address displayed for their business location. Instead, they can choose a center location and radius in miles or kilometers, or simply list the locations they serve. Read more about the Google LBC Change at SmallBizTrends. So if this requirement was holding you back before, you don’t have an excuse now to keep your business off of Google Business Center Listings!

1SmallBizTrends