What is Google Local Business Center for Maps?
Have you ever wondered how to get your non profit or NGO on Google Maps when people do searches? This can be done using the Google Local Business Center for Maps (LBC) service. It is a fast and free way to make your organization more visually accessible on the web.
What information should we provide?
A local listing can be very important for Non Governmental Organizations as it makes it easier for you to be found. There is a lot of useful information you can add such as:
- Titles: The name of your project
- Addresses: Add your current address, don’t make Google guess as the approximate location it provides may be incorrect. To be certain, use no abbreviations in your street name. A good feature of LBC is that it automatically places a marker on the map as you type so you visually the accuracy. Corrections can be made using the “Fix incorrect marker location” area of your listing editor.
- Web Pages: Google is a search engine, so make sure your non profit has a website with meaningful information so that you can take full advantage of your local business center listing.
- Phone Numbers: This is still an important means of communication so have it ready. You may want to add numbers for your main office, donations or community outreach services.
- Categories: Your business category is used to help filter listings during searches. If you make a mistake and list your non-profit as a restaurant, then your listing on the map will never show up when people search using key words such as “volunteer”, “non profit”, or “NGO”. Choose this wisely.
- Hours & Payment / Photos: Add your office hours, but also upload a gallery of pictures of the location and images of success stories of your beneficiaries.
- Custom Fields: Upload anything that you think would be of interest. Consider including pledge drive flyers, public health information or your press package.
Think of the very many ways in which this can help your organization. Brainstorm with your marketing team, they may think of other ideas to help make a difference.
How do we get started?
Fortunately Google has a very interesting tutorial on how to add your non profit to its Local Business Center.
Use your local listing in marketing campaigns
You can use your listing to have a great impact on the visibility of your non-profit on the web. This video should provide you with a lot of food for thought.
Getting interested? Here are some other interesting things you can use your local listing to achieve:
- You can tie your listing to your Google Analytics account to get data on who is visiting your main website from your map page.
- The local listing dashboard will also show neighborhoods from which people are using driving directions to reach your offices. This is excellent information for targeting your direct mailing marketing campaigns. You could consider opening an office in these neighborhoods too.
- Compare the keywords people use to find your listing with those they use to find your website. You may want one to consider having each site focus on a different type of visitor. Volunteers versus donors for example.
- Try adding listings for each branch of your NGO so that people can find all your locations in a neighborhood or region
- Add links to your listing to your website, blog or fan page so that it becomes more visible
- Update your photos on your listing so that it becomes more alive.
Conclusion
A local listing is only a part of any online marketing plan. For it to be successful, assign the responsibility of maintaining your local listing to someone and make them report on the progress they have made with it. Document what has been done so that others can take over when there are changes in staffing. Fortunately a local listing won’t change frequently, but it is a good practice for any activity you choose.
