Local Small Business Advertising With Google Places, Tags and Boost

As a small business owner running a local business there is much to
be gained from making use of free services such as Google Places. This
services literally puts your business on the map (the Google map that
is) when people search for products and services like yours in your
area. Great, right? If you have a candle shop in your city and someone
searches for candles in your town, if you have signed up for Google
Places, there is a very good chance your business will show up right
on the map at the top of the search results page.As search engines
produce more and more specific and local search results to their users
the small business owner had better be on board. Gone are the days
when the phone book was the main source of new customers. Online is
where it's at when it comes to your potential customers finding
you.Taking it a step further Google has introduced two new services
that are perfect for getting more attention for your location. The
first of these is called Google Boost and allows you to create ads
right from within your free Google Places business listing. These ads
may appear in not only the Google mapping search results but in the
general sponsored search results as well. These ads will be specific
to your business and display when search related to your business,
business type, location, and so on are preformed.Google Tags is an
additional layer of exposure that is applied to Google Maps. This is a
fee based service that is a simple flat rate per month. With the Tags
service you have the ability to really make your business listing
stand out in the Google Map search results. On your places listing a
small yet highly visible yellow tag appears on the text portion and on
the map portion of the results. The ability for a small business owner
to really make their listing stand out for a very affordable fixed
monthly rate ($25!) is simply too good to pass up.As you get more
involved with your business website and online presence take some time
to really understand what is available to you. Services like Google
Places, Tags and Boost offer some free and very affordable online
advertising that can really benefit your small business bottom line.