Well we had some problems with our google places listing and finally after several months of screaming on their forums, an employee helped us get our listing working again. It had said the dreaded 'location not supported.' Unfortunately a competing business has been given one of our older duplicate listings, which ranks #1 for certain terms that we worked hard for, and this is very frustrating! Our listing is showing for some terms again, however not quite high enough to make the top of the 'local results' for others even though we are rated in the top 3 for said terms in organic results. What are peoples experiences for getting to the top of the 'local results'? Will it just take some time to climb back to the top of the local results, and is there any way to make this happen? I'm not sure but my thoughts would be to: a) utilize general SEO techniques such as including key words in title, bold on your regular page, and have incoming links with said keywords as anchor text b) though it's not generally allowed, if you can have your keywords included in the title of your places page, perhaps if you make it look like that is your business name (i.e. buy the domain and use same title on webpage) c) encourage people to rate your place AND include said keywords in their review?? d) post updates to your places page, which include keywords??
First yes, Google Places does take a little time in my experience BUT luckily it is usually easier to rank than G itself. a) Yes, basic SEO is helpful for sure! b) Again this is a good idea! You still want to be sure to use your real business name but as an example if you had a law firm and were called like John Smith Firm in New York then representing yourself, for G places, as New York John Smith Attorney at Law is certainly helpful as you're maintaining your company name but also adding your KWs in there (and yes, getting a website to represent this as well helps). c) Or you can outsource/fake this but the more reviews the better and although I can't say for sure I strongly believe that KWs in reviews DO count! d) Once again yes! You want to use every opportunity to get those KWs in there, going back to what I very first said with G places it is easy to rank provided your ONSITE SEO is in good shape! As opposed to a normal site where backlinks are the big part of the picture with G places being optimized for the search terms you want is where you want to focus. And finally it sounds like you've got pretty good ideas, I'd jump in and get it rolling!