Citation Use – the Effective way

Google Places is a great service that allows businesses to gain exposure on the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Businesses can increase their rank on the SERP by providing content that Google views as adding value for its users. Google deems a variety of content as value adding, including business hours, street addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, business descriptions, photos, videos, and blog posts. The content that Google assigns the highest trust and authority to are customer reviews.

Finebloom & Haenel does a great job of effectively using all of the content above to provide value to its current and potential clients. Here’s an example of the NAP.

Tampa Criminal Attorney

Finebloom & Haenel P.A.

3426 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa, FL 33609

(813) 649-8690

They have photos of their attorneys, informational videos, walkthroughs of the offices, 24/7 phone lines, self-published books on the dui process, and much more. At one time, Darren Finebloom and David Haenel even had a weekly radio program to provide education to listeners about traffic laws. The point is that it is important to think outside of the box when it comes creating content for users and customers. The most important question to keep in mind when creating content is “Does this provide additional value to the user?”

Providing content with value is not only good for improving a business’s rank on the SERP but is also a great marketing strategy to implement regarding a company’s interactions with its customers. Businesses can build trust and authority by constantly employing the principle of value-added interactions, both online and offline. As a rule of thumb, the best offline marketing practices translate into the best online marketing practices.

Search Engine Marketers differ vastly in the ways they look at SEO and the techniques they use to improve ranking. It is important to employ strategies that are not deceptive and strive to achieve long-term results. Far too often people try to figure out ways of tricking the algorithm that Google uses for determining which order to rank websites. While these strategies may work for quick results, Google is constantly updating its algorithm to sort through these deceptive practices.  A website that is ranking at the top of Google’s SERP may drop off it complete after one of these updates. Therefore, it is best to use methods that are ultimately adding value to the users.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe.”