• Make your phone number local and unique
• Get your Categories Straight
• Remember Keywords in your business name
• Put your contact info on your site
• Get Reviews
• Diagnose problems with existing listings
• Get links from the sites Google scrapes

Some of this information has been covered in the 5 Local SEO Musts post, but this topic deserves its own post because it's so important.

Get a listing

This is simple enough. Just visit the Local Business Center and sign up.

Make your phone number local and unique

The important thing to remember when creating or updating your listing is to use a local phone number for the area you're creating the listing for, not an 800 number. This helps Google determine that you actually have a business in that city and aren't attempting to spam the local map. Also, make sure that the number you use is unique to this listing and not attached to any other business' listing. If it is, you'll need to change one of the phone numbers. It's very important that you associate one local phone number with each business listing you create.

Get your Categories Straight

The Google map search results relie heavily on the categories you enter for your business. Think of as many ways as possible to describe what your business does. A great place to get suggestions for keywords ideas the SEO Book Keyword Tool. Enter your main keyword and you'll get keyword suggestions sorted by estimated search volume. You can enter up to five catagories in the local business center, take advantage of all of them and enter five different keywords that describe services or products your business offers. Searching your keywords on maps.google.com gives you much more information on a listing when you click through to see more information. You can see exactly what categories they have entered, for example.

Remember Keywords in Your Business Name

If the name of your restaurant is simply "Joe's," add more description to your business name in your listing, like "Joe's Italian Restaurant." Do not stuff keywords into your business name haphazardly. It's against the local business center policy and can get you penalized.

Put Your Contact Info on Your Site

Put your business name, address and telephone number in the footer of every page of your site. Put it hCard microformat to make it easier for Google to differentiate since Google now parses the format. Here's an example of the code:

<div class="vcard">
   <div class="fn org">Imagine Visibililty</div>
   <div class="adr">
     <div class="street-address">174 N 11th Street</div>
     <div>
       <span class="locality">Brooklyn</span>, NY
       <span class="postal-code"> 11211</span>
    </div>
     <div class="country-name">USA</div>
   </div>
   <div>Phone: <span class="tel">+1-347-788-8736</span></div>
   <div>Email: <span class="email">
 This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
 </span>
  </div>
 </div>	

Get Reviews

Google likes to see that your business has gotten reviews and has an active customer base. The star rating of the reviews isn't a ranking factor in the local maps listings, but rather the amount and frequency of reviews. Sign up for all of the local review sites that google pulls reviews from in your area and industry. You can look at the local map results of your competitors to find out where Google pulls reviews from. There some sites that you create business listings for, like Yelp.com, Yellowpages.com and Insiderpages.com, and others that pull business info from site like Citysearch.com. If you can't add your business to that site, don't worry about it. Eventually they will get around to pulling your info and they will create a listing for you.
While getting reviews is important, do not spam the reviews. Fake reviews look fishy, and can get you penalized by the local listing site and by Google Local Business Center.

Diagnose problems with existing listings

Your listing isn't showing up even when you search your business name? Perhaps Google is penalizing your listing because there's an automatically created duplicate listing. Log in to the Local Business Center and see if there's more than one listing for the same business name. If there are two or more, delete the duplicates. You can also check for duplicate listings by going to maps.google.com and searching for your phone number and for your business' URL. If more than one result pops up, claim that listing and delete it. Also, if your phone number is associated with more than one listing, you need to change one listings' phone numbers.

Get links from the sites Google scrapes

These are also called web citations and the more you have, the better. Go to one of your competitor's listings on Google maps and click on the "Web Pages" tab. Go to those sites and see if it's possible to add your business info and a link to your website there. This is a great way to see what pages Google sees as legitimate. More references to your business helps give your listing more trust and it also has the benefit of helping your link building efforts for your business' home page.

If you need more help with Local SEO, please get in touch!