How to get your information into Google Maps (6): User generated data

If you want to publish information into Google Maps that isn’t a business location, you cannot use the Local Business Center, or the local ads option. You could use local AdWords ads, but that won’t display your information on the map.

Another way of adding information into Google Maps is by creating your own data sources. There are a few different ways of doing this and this article shows you how.

Lees verder “How to get your information into Google Maps (6): User generated data”

How to get your information into Google Maps (5): Local Ads

After using the information of the previous article about the Local Business Center, you discovered when searching on Google Maps you’re just one of the several hundred companies in the search results. You start wondering how this can be changed, how can you make sure people will notice your company. That’s where the local business ads feature becomes useful.

First a note. I wanted to test the Local ads before writing about it. Unfortunately I don’t have a campaign suitable for local ads at the moment. All information found in this article is from research I’ve done. When I do have a local campaign running, I’ll probably write a follow up.

Lees verder “How to get your information into Google Maps (5): Local Ads”

How to get your information into Google Maps: Update

For those of you who are waiting for the next installment in the How to get your information into Google Maps series, here’s a quick update.

Writing the last two articles about Local Ads and User Generated Content is taking longer than I thought it would take. Especially the one about Local Ads.

The local features of Adwords are difficult to test just for the sake of an article, without running a real campaign.

So keep your eyes posted on this blog, next week the last 2 articles will be published.

In the mean time, if you’re Dutch, you may wanna check out the Dutch version of this series. It’s not just a translated version, but it will also be adapted to the Dutch Google Maps (if possible and needed).

How to get your information into Google Maps (4): Local Business Center

In the previous article in the ‘how to get your information into Google Maps’ series I talked about the 3rd party sources Google is using for their data on Google Maps. After reading this article you’re ready to get your hands dirty and start adding your own business information by using the Local Business Center.

Lees verder “How to get your information into Google Maps (4): Local Business Center”

How to get your information into Google Maps (3): Local data suppliers

I think the most important source of data for Google Maps are the local data suppliers or 3rd party sources.

The biggest difference between the webcrawling results and 3rd party sources is the structure of the data. 3rd Party sources know what the address fields are, how the extra data like reviews is structured, etc. While data from the crawlers isn’t structure at all, as we saw in the previous post.

Lees verder “How to get your information into Google Maps (3): Local data suppliers”

How to get your information into Google Maps (2): Webcrawler

Today was an important day because of Google’s announcements about My Maps and KML search. I’ll talk about these later on in this series, when I’m writing about user generated sources.

This post is about the business data Google gets by crawling the Internet and the use of addresses on your website.

Lees verder “How to get your information into Google Maps (2): Webcrawler”

How to get your information into Google Maps (1)

Google is adding more and more localized information to Google Maps. They are adding information about local businesses, restaurants, hotels, public transport and even live traffic information (at this moment only available for the US).

What the sources are for the information Google displays on the maps isn’t very clear to a lot of people.

At last week’s Geo Developer day I also discovered not a lot of people know how they can control their own information on the maps by using the Google Local Business center.

In this series of posts I’ll write about the sources Google uses and ways how to add or edit your own information.

First let’s start with an introduction.

Lees verder “How to get your information into Google Maps (1)”