Google Places and Tags Holiday Guide

As the holidays approach, we’ve put together five quick and easy ways Google Places can help your business reach customers.

But first things first: claim the Place page for your business on www.google.com/places. This unlocks your ability to take advantage of all of these useful ideas:

• Create a coupon highlighting holiday specials: Are you offering a package of products or services to your customers this holiday season? Let people know by creating a coupon for your special on your Place page. From your Places dashboard, click on the “Coupons” tab and then “Add a new Coupon.” Fill out a few details and watch your coupon go live! You can also give the coupon an expiration date, so it only runs for a set time period. Coupons are also a great way to track how many customers found you through Google Places. For more details on creating a coupon, check out our Help Center.

• Link to a menu of holiday offers and prices: Manage the holiday rush by providing a link to your menu of products and services, or even your reservation page, on your Place page. To add your link, sign in to your Places dashboard, go to your listing and click "Edit." Scroll down to "Additional Details," add a column by typing in the label “Menu,” and then enter the URL of where you host your menu! If your website also handles reservations, then you can link to “Reservations” too. Check out this example and sign in now to add your links.

• Make your business listing stand out with Google Tags: Show customers your holiday offer or menu when they search on Google and Google Maps. Tags are yellow markers that allow business owners to highlight important or unique aspects of their business, such as that coupon you’ve just created, a video, photos and more. To create a tag, go to your Places dashboard and click on “Add a tag.” Simply choose your tag type and let it run. To get you started, we’re giving business owners 30 days free!

• Update your holiday business hours: Are you extending your operating hours on some days to accommodate the holidays? Update the business hours listed on your Place page for the days you’ll be open early or late. This helps local customers, especially last-minute shoppers, who may be interested in visiting your store take advantage of your extended hours.

• Write a post to engage with your customers: Whether you’ll be closed for a certain holiday or open on days when most businesses aren’t, a post is the perfect way to let your customers know. You can also use it to tell people about your latest shipment holiday inventory. Posts are short custom messages of up to 160 characters and appear on your Place page. For more details on writing a post, check out our Help Center. You can also highlight your post with a Google Tag.

Posted by Bernadette Cay, Associate Product Marketing Manager