Tips for creating a free business listing in Google Places: Business listing titles

Users search on Google.com and Google Maps because they’re looking for relevant, high-quality content that answers a question or fulfills a need. This useful information often appears in the form of business listings on the search results page, and these free listings are an important way for local business owners to connect with potential customers. We want to help you make the most of your business listing, so this is the first post in three-part blog series about how to set up a clear and effective business listing via Google Places. This first installment delves into the specific topic of business listing titles — also known as your company or organization name — and highlights some of the common issues business owners encounter when creating a listing.

Example of business listings displayed on google.com

Accurately list your basic business information

If you already have a business listing and want to tweak it, or if you haven’t yet claimed your business listing, sign in or visit Google Places here. The “Company/Organization” field will also serve as your business listing title, so you’ll want to enter in the exact name of your business. For example, for a business called “Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd.” the following would be its correct business and contact details:

Company/Organization: Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd.
Street Address: 88 Fish Road
City/Town and Postal Code: Fishtown, CA 90210
Main Phone: (555) 555-5555
Website: www.example_for_flyfishingfrankies.com

A clean, easy-to-read title

The title of your business listing should reflect the exact name of your company or organization as it’s used in the real world. While it’s acceptable to leave off company extensions like Ltd, GmbH or Inc, since those identifiers aren’t helpful to users, be sure to avoid adding any descriptions that aren’t part of the official business name or making any modifications to the official name. Your business listing title must match the business name you use in the real world (e.g. on signage, letterheads or business cards) in order to comply with our Google Places quality guidelines. Listings that are in violation of these guidelines may be suspended and won’t appear in Google search results.

Here are some additional reminders about business titles based on some of the offending listings we see and have to suspend. We also let you know how and where to include specific information you want to provide potential customers, while complying with our quality guidelines.

• Descriptors and keywords — The following are common examples of modified business titles. These are instances in which either descriptive phrases are used in lieu of the correct business name, or additional keywords and phrases have been added to the business name. These examples are not in accordance with our quality guidelines:
• [Example title violation] Professional fishing travels
  
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. - fishing, cutter travels, eating crabs
  
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. entertaining cutter travels
Note: While the “Company/Organization” field may only contain the name of your business, if you’d like to provide more information about your business’s classification or industry, you can do this by selecting the appropriate categories. You can also provide a more detailed description of your business - such as what you do and the the services you provide - in the “Description” field or on your company website.

• Location names — Unless the official name of your business includes the name of your city, town or other geographic indicator, adding superfluous location terms to the business title violates our guidelines:
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. Fishtown
  
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. in Market Place Shopping Mall
Note: To indicate the location of your business, please use the appropriate fields marked “Street Address,” “City/Town” and “Postal Code.” Adding location-specific information in the title of your listing is not necessary since our system automatically uses your address details to determine the search queries for which your listings would be geographically relevant. If you’re concerned that your business is difficult to find or part of a shopping mall or complex, you can provide users with further guidance about where to find you by adding that information in the “Description” field.

• Phone numbers and websites — Phone numbers and website URLs should not appear in your business title. These details should only be entered into their respective fields in your Google Places listing. The following examples of titles violate our quality guidelines:
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. (555) 555-5555
  
• [Example title violation] Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd. www.example_for_fishingfreddys.com

• Capitalization and Punctuation — Some users may be tempted to use special characters or excessive capitalization in the business title to draw attention to their listing. However, this practice is not compliant with our quality guidelines:
• [Example title violation] FLY FISHING FRANKIE’S LTD.
  
• [Example title violation] **!!**Fly Fishing Frankie’s Ltd.**!!**
Note: In order to ensure that the Google Places business listing results are useful and easy to read, please refrain from using visual gimmicks. Business titles, as well as addresses, should always use standard capitalization and punctuation.

The above examples may not cover all cases of business title violations, but we hope we were able to highlight some of the common mistakes we’ve seen. By avoiding these errors when setting up your business listing title, as well as reading through the rest of our Google Places quality guidelines, you should be in good shape to create an optimal and compliant listing.

If you realize that your existing listing is not compliant with our quality guidelines, we encourage you to sign in to your Google Places account to make the required changes and avoid getting temporarily suspended for violating the guidelines.

We hope you find this information helpful, and if you have further questions about business listing titles, visit our Google Places help forum.

Getting started with Google Earth

I've had a few people email me recently and ask essentially the same question:

"I'm new to Google Earth. What can I do to learn more about it?"

If you're a new user, or a veteran user wanting to learn more, this post should give you some direction. In no particular order, here are some places to learn more about Google Earth:

• Our "Google Earth Basics" page -- Frank assembled this page when Google Earth first came out, and the various sections are updated periodically to keep things current. It's a great resource for learning the basics such as how to navigate, using the overview map, working with historical imagery and much more.

• Our Recent Archives Simply view the archives on the side of the page to see our recent posts to catch up with the latest Google Earth news. You can even focus on our "Google Earth News" category to only see the latest updates from Google (new imagery, new features, etc).

• A community such as the Google Earth Community or Google Earth Hacks -- Finding places where you can talk to other Google Earth Users is a great way to ask questions, share information, and learn more about the great things you can do with Google Earth.

• My Twitter "Geo" list -- I've created a list on Twitter (a group of people to follow) that is focused specifically on Geo-related users and includes 55 people so far. You'll find people like:

-- Google Employees Bruce Polderman, Mike Pegg and Mano Marks.
-- Info from other sites like Ogle Earth and Google Maps Mania.
-- 3D modelers like Kevin DeVito or the official 3D Warehouse account.
-- Imagery providers such as TeleAtlas and GeoEye.

Beyond that, just dig in! Play with the built-in layers, search for fun places to visit, and just get familiar with moving around the globe.

If you have any other great "getting started" sources to add, please leave a comment on this post and let us know!

Hamburg City Guide on Google Maps

HafenCity Map

UbiLabs have combined the Google Maps API with OpenStreetMap map tiles to create a guide to shops and restaurants in the port area in Hamburg, Germany.

It is possible to search the map for different types of shop and different types of restaurant. As you browse the map you can bookmark any restaurant or shop that you like from the map sidebar or from the locations' information window. It is then possible to view a map of only your bookmarked locations.

It is also possible to view car parks, taxi stands, bus-stops, cash-points and toilets on the map.

Celebrity Stalking with Google Maps

JustSpotted

Celebrity spotting site Gawker Stalker has been around for over four years now. In that time a number of other celebrity spotting sites have come and gone without seriously threatening Gawker Stalker's crown as the number one celebrity stalking website.

JustSpotted a new celebrity spotting site is set to launch in five days time. Currently the site has a Google Map that animates through a number of photographs of celebrities who have recently been spotted. JustSpotted's success will surely depend on how well it can crowdsource celebrity sightings.iPap launched this year with an iPhone application that allows users to post sightings from their smart phone.

We will have to wait and see how JustSpotted plans to crowdsource the data for its map.