Working with county government, the Cleveland County Chamber and the Small Business Center at Cleveland Community College, the library will provide step-by-step training to local businesses of all sizes wishing to claim their free, verified business listing through Google.com.
Statistics show four out of five people use search engines to find information on local businesses, which makes it important for a company to be quickly and easily found online. Google is the world’s largest, most used search engine for both mobile and home devices.
Library clerk Ensley Guffey said the program will have benefits for business owners like making it easier to find information on their business and providing them with metrics on how people find their business.
“Google is definitely getting data out of (the program), and they’re doing this to maintain their positions as the number one search engine but businesses are getting things out of this as well,” Guffey said.
With a free, verified Google business listing, local businesses are search engine optimized. That means those businesses will appear at the top of the search results when people search for a general type of business or for a specific business name.
Verified businesses are also listed in Google search results with information including hours of operations, phone number and directions via Google Maps. With a Google verified business listing, potential customers can call, get directions or visit a company’s website with a single tap on their smartphones.
“Here at the library, we looked at roughly 800 local businesses in Cleveland County," Guffey said. "Of those, only 37 percent had claimed their free Google business listing."
He said unverified businesses will no longer show up on Google Maps next year. As the non-profit partner for the project, the Cleveland County Library System wants to make sure more businesses take advantage of the free listing.
Claiming a verified business listing is completely free, as are training and set up through Cleveland County Library System. The library will be hosting workshops at various times to be announced later, and trained library staff members will also be travelling by appointment throughout the county to help local businesses claim their Google verified listings.
©2016 The Star (Shelby, N.C.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
