Places

How does your business show up in Google Places? Places is an app that can be accessed from mobile phones. Used mainly for restaurants, gas stations,  and coffee shops the app can be used for any product and service.

If a potential customer's car breaks down out of town---Places can help them to the nearest service center. It's important to review information periodically when you find your business on Places. Anyone can enter information regarding your business---customers and employees both. You, as business owner, need to claim the business and keep information like telephone numbers and hours of operation accurate. From a mobile phone it's simply a click on a telephone number and the customer has you on the phone.

And as more and more people use phones to search for products and services, the local search on places will be used to locate home repairs and services and many products that we turn to the Yellow Pages today. In fact, when was the last time you turned to the hard copy Yellow Pages?              

Getting the Word Out

One of my favorite stories to tell is when I was looking for a bicycle to buy. I love buying local and supporting my local economy---I've always viewed it as a mission to support my local small businesses even before it was fashionable to do so. 

I was having difficulty finding the particular bicycle that I needed and ended up doing an internet search. I went to another state to make the purchase because there were no businesses listed with the brand that I wanted locally. It is important to have the word out on your business in various ways on the internet otherwise your customers could be going to the next state over and passing you up. 

Every now and then you can get the word out on your products and services for free. Bing currently is offering a free mobile site for businesses complete with a QR code for you physical location so customers can scan the code in to phones and easily locate that mobile site.

On the mobile site you can add monthly/weekly deals, product photos, events, and hours. It is a handy (and handsome) website widget that can help your customer and can even be easily emailed to friends or shared to Twitter and Facebook.

To contact you by phone the customer simply hits the button. This is how the mobile web was designed to work---easy and fast, with a "meet you at the store or event" sharing ease of use.