NB: This article is meant for business owners who are internet adverse, or use the web most for fun and unfamiliar with online marketing. If you are a web professional, you can move on, but share with your friends who could use this.

Why list your store online

Small business owners are stuck in a conundrum. They are likely to be too busy with daily affairs to manage their social presence, BUT they also cannot ignore the potential revenue and brand building they miss out on if they do. not Some might think making a Facebook page or a Multiply account is enough to promote their company, but they should actually be putting their names in online local listings first. It’s maintenance-free, doesn’t cost a thing, and makes it easier for people to find and contact them. To give you a better idea, take a look at what you see when you look up “Microtel Mall of Asia” in Google, Bing Maps and Foursquare:

        Primer

For this tutorial, we will teach you how to get your company listed on the search engines Google and Bing, as well as Foursquare.

First things first, you will need an email account to register under all these different listings. You may also use this to get PIN verification. If you don’t have one yet, you can setup a Gmail account for all three. Go to http://mail.google.com to register, and then go to http://www.hotmail.com and use your Gmail address to make a Hotmail/Windows Live account there.

To make the whole process faster, prepare the entries in the following checklist so that you have all the information you need on hand when you’re doing the registration. Not all this information is mandatory, BUT you will want to share as much of this information as possible to anticipate potential inquiries.

• Business Name
• Street Address (City, State, Zip Code)
• Local Phone Number
• Public email address
• Website
• Contact Person Name and Number
• List of Products/Services
• Payment Options
• Hours of Operation
• Areas Served
• Year Founded/Years in business
• Certifications
• Languages Spoken

You will also need to prepare a description of your place, categories, and keywords which are just different ways of describing your business to make it easier to find you. For example, if you run a bakery, bakery is the category and you would use keywords like bread, fresh, hot and pastry. If you have some ready branding or copy for your place, you will be able to use them here. If not, make a simple one sentence description of what your store is.

Lastly, you will want to ready some images. If you do not have a ready picture of your store’s logo, take pictures of the store sign and the entrance with a smartphone or digital camera. Feel free to take casual pictures of the store with customers, or maybe pictures of the staff as well. You’ll also want to prepare at east one picture of yourself for Foursquare.

When preparing all this information, remember this: you want to make it easier for people to identify and find your place.

Google Places

At the Google Places website, click at the right said when it says to Claim your business/Get your business found on Google.

  At the next screen, enter your address and Google will find you in its virtual map. Correct the map as necessary, and get help here if you need to. You will also be asked for the information on the form, so you should be able to fill it out quickly.

Lastly, you will be sent to a PIN verification screen, and choose between phone and mail. With phone verification, you will get a voice call with the PIN immediately. Otherwise, it will take one to three weeks to get a postcard with the PIN.   Either way, you will be done when you enter the PIN and your place gets added to Google Places. When you are added in, the next time someone Googles your name, they will see your store location in Google Maps, along with all the information you shared.

Bing Local Listings

The registration process in Bing is identical as Google’s, with some additions. First things first, after you pick your category, you are sent to a screen where you can choose which products/services you specialize in. You are given sliders to choose which ones are more important than others. As you move one specialty up and down, the others will adjust accordingly. Feel free to play with this feature until you think you get it right.

Second, Bing offers to make you a free mobile website you can make on the fly. You do not have to use it, but it’s recommended you use this so that you have a good presence on smartphones.

Lastly, this is a minor feature, but you are asked to find your store in Bing’s maps last instead of first. It just makes it easier and less intimidating to fill the form out, but either way, you will want to show your store’s location on the map for easy reference.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a social network based on using smartphones to sign into locations (which Foursquare calls venues). When fans sign into your business on Foursquare, it’s communicated to all their friends, and the free advertising can grow exponentially. Foursquare connects to Facebook and Twitter, so joining Foursquare gives you a presence on the three main social networks you need to be in. Foursquare registration is easy and fast, so you’re likely to enjoy doing this the most. To add your business into Foursquare, register as a user.  If you are not going to be using Foursquare as an end user, you can skip adding and finding friends. This is where you’ll need that picture of yourself.

Users are allowed to add venues, so you will have to check if your venue is already listed.  If you do not find your venue, you will fill out the form pictured below.

In case your place is already registered as a venue, click the link to claim it and confirm at this screen. You’ll be asked for your Foursquare user ID and your website (You can use your Google Places listing  here). After Foursquare verifies you (usually within seven to ten days), you’ll be able to edit the information on your venue. Adding your stores to these local listings is only the tip of the iceberg. You can leverage your presence in these lists by offering coupons and discounts, or looking up what kind of people enter your store. Even if you only do the registration described here, however, just getting listed in these stores will make a huge difference in your social presence.