Many businesses today are finding that they need to generate traffic from online sources. Online marketing is a great way for them to do this. In the past, it has been difficult to create a website and hope that people find it by chance – even if it’s on Google or Bing. Today, there are many ways that companies can take advantage of SEO (search engine optimization) tactics to get their business found when someone searches for what they offer.
One way is through the use of the Google Maps API – which will help you list your company on maps applications like Yelp! or Foursquare, as well as show up when someone does an address search on Google Maps. Whether you’re new at using APIs or not, this article has plenty of helpful tips and tricks that are guaranteed to help boost your traffic numbers quickly.
- Create a Google Maps API key: First, you will need to create a Google Maps API key. You can do this by going to the website and clicking “Create an API Key.” Once there, just follow the steps on creating your personal one that you can use for your business site or application.
The Google Maps API key is a way to identify your site when you make requests to their servers. It identifies the company and lets them know if they should process it or not. It is a great way to ensure you aren’t overloading their servers and prevents people from trying to fake the requests.
- List a business on Google Maps using the API: Once you have your application key, it’s time to list a business. If you already have a company website for your company or small business, then adding it is as easy as going through and pasting in the code onto one of the pages that people will see.
This can either be done by yourself if you know how to do so via HTML or with some help from someone else at your organization – who might not need all those coding skills themselves! If you don’t have a website, then this is where your company listing will be seen by everyone on Google Maps.
- Create an interactive map with the following features: The Google Maps API is a great way to attract more visitors and customers to your website or business location. It allows you to add interactive maps, which can be embedded onto your website, where people will have the option of using Google Maps on their own if they are interested. To create an interactive map, you can try a professional tool like Showmap where you need to enter map coordinates, create a link, upload the image to your website and embed it with some shortcode. How cool is that?
- Include links in your post: Once you create maps, make sure to include their links in your website’s posts. With this, you will be able to attract more traffic from users who search for places around your business. This is also helpful for people who are on a mobile device since they can easily find it from your website.
- Link out to other relevant content across the web: Make sure that you link out to relevant content across the web. If your post is about how to use Google Maps API, for example, make sure that you include links pointing back at other posts related to this topic. How-to sites are great places where you can find these articles because they have a lot of them in their archives! Plus, you can benefit from the link juice that each site provides.
- Make your website as user-friendly as possible: Don’t forget that just like any business, people will come and go from your site depending on if it provides valuable information or not. Your goal should be making money online – so create an experience worth returning for! How do you accomplish this? Ensure maximum return with quality traffic by following the tips stated above and watch those numbers soar!! Besides, if you’re going to do it – why not be the best.
Benefits of using Google Maps API:
- Getting listed in directories: Getting listed is as easy as adding your business information into an online directory. There are many free and paid options out there, so find one that best suits you and watch those numbers grow! Besides, no one likes wasting their time with useless information.
- Generate leads now! Optimizing for locals is key here; since people often search locally before taking action. How do I track progress on lead generation efforts? Google Webmaster Tools tracks how many visitors come into your website via a specific keyword or phrase (aka ‘search terms’).
- Helpful for creating custom maps: As we saw above, the Google Maps API is a great tool for helping your business get found – especially if you’re trying to reach customers locally. How do I know how many leads are generated from the site? The best way to measure this is by using event tracking in Google Analytics.
- Provides useful information to users: Nowadays, people focus on obtaining as much information as they can from websites, blogs, online forums, and videos. So, if you have a website or blog, then consider creating an interactive map and embedding it into a blog post. It will help your visitors gain valuable information about your company, products, or services.
- Useful for planning routes/itineraries: People find it easy to plan their routes/itineraries with the help of interactive maps. For instance, if you want to travel from New York City to Boston and would like to know the time/distance involved in the journey or other details about your trip, then just take a look at How many miles is it from NY city (New York) and How far is it between Philadelphia & Boston (Pennsylvania).
Conclusion:
No matter what your marketing budget is, Google Maps API has solutions for you. So if your business needs traffic and you want to increase your online presence, then it’s worth giving a shot!