If you’ve searched for a business on Google, chances are you have landed on a Google Place page. These pages collect information from around the web about a business and display it on one handy page. Items can include maps, hours of operations, photos, and reviews.

Beaver Country Day School's Google Place page appears on Google's search results. (Click for larger image.)

Beaver's Google Place Page

The real power of Google Places is seen when a business claims a Place page as its own. Once Google has verified ownership, a business can access their page and add their own information and photos. This can be a necessity if there is any incorrect information that has been pulled from other internet sources.

Step one in doing anything with your Google Places page is to claim it as your own. At the top of any page that has not been claimed is a link that says “Business Owner?” Clicking that will take you to a page where you can choose to edit your business listing. Before you can do that, Google will send a letter containing a PIN to the address it has on file for the business. You will need that number to confirm that you are a representative of the business. This ensures that only people associated with the business can edit the listing.

So, how can an independent school take advantage of all the features found on its Google Place page? Here are a couple of things you can do:

Make sure the information on your Google Places page is accurate.

We all know that everything you find on the internet is accurate, right? Of course not. Since much of the initial information on your Google Place page is pulled from external sources like Wikipedia, there may be some information you need to correct.

When you get to the edit page, Google provides all the basics: address, business (school) hours, phone numbers, email address, etc (even areas to upload photos and videos). At the very bottom of the page you will see an “Additional Information” section. Use this to add information such as your tuition, head of school’s name, athletics offered, etc.

One of the incorrect items we found on Beaver’s Google Place page was our tuition. Google pulled in our tuition as something like $3,000. They found this on a page about our nursery school. Well, our actual tuition is a lot higher than that. So we added a “Tuition” field under “Additional Information” and now the correct tuition amount is displayed on our Places page.

Use Posts to call attention to upcoming admission events.

Google allows business owners to add a Twitter-like post to their Places page. We use this to advertise upcoming admission events. We feel that most people viewing our Places page are searching for us because they are in the process on looking for an independent school.

These posts appear “above the fold” right under your school’s basic information.

Here is our current post:

Join us for Admission Information Day & Group Tours, October 14, 2010, 8:15 a.m. to 9:45 a.m., and Admission Info Evening, Oct. 28, 2010, 7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Your post will expire after 30 days, so be sure to update it often. There is no reason not to have some sort of announcement on your places page.

A Post on Beaver's Google Places Page (Click for larger image.)

Add a Tag to your page.

Google has introduced Google Tags. This new feature makes your listing stand out on Google’s search results page. Unlike Posts, Tags is not free. After a one month free trial, the cost is $25 per month.

When activated, you can choose which tag you want to display. The choices run the range from showing a coupon to a link to a restaurant’s reservation system. Most independent schools will probably choose the tag that point visitors to the school’s website.

So how are these displayed to the user? Say someone is doing a search for “private schools in Chestnut Hill MA”, they would see a list of schools next to a map pinpointing each school. In the screen shot below, notice the little yellow tag next to Beaver’s entry. It draws the user’s eye to our listing with a direct link to our website.

Tag as seen on search results page. (Click for larger image.)

Check your analytics.

Google provides an excellent set of analytics for your Google Places page via your Places Dashboard page. You will be able to see several statistics:

• Impressions: How many times users saw your Google Place listing in their search results.
• Actions: How many times users clicked on certain areas of your listing. These areas include:
  • Clicks for more info on Google Maps
  • Clicks for driving directions
  • Clicks directly to your website

You are also shown the most popular search terms used to find your page. For example, the top three search terms for Beaver are “Beaver Country Day School,” “private schools,” and “private high schools.”

Another really neat statistic is the top locations where driving directions to your school came from. For Beaver, Newton, Wellesley, and Boston are the top three.

If you have Google Tags activated, you can also see how many people clicked on your website from the tag.

Coupons

You can also create and display a coupon on your Places page. We haven’t used this yet, but if you have a school store maybe you could offer a discount on school spirit wear. That might appeal to alumni who are searching for their alma mater.

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Everything mentioned here only takes a few minutes to set up and is entirely free (with the exception of Tags). There really is no reason for a school not to claim its Google Places listing and create another way for perspective families to find out about your school.