It's been a long time since my last email, but trade show season is over now and I have a moment to breathe.

To prepare for a recent trade show with 1500 exhibitors, I Googled hundreds of technology companies to see where they are located. I had to do a lot of digging to find basic information! This exercise inspired me to address (no pun intended) the subject of contact information.  

I have several articles in the works for newsletters, but contact info takes precedence. It's more involved than you think! So here are my thoughts on contact information and how to present it.

What does contact mean to you?

In the fishing expedition described above, I discovered that contact means different things to different people. As a matter of fact, it's all over the map! To find out where a company is located, I had to visit each website and often make several clicks to find a company's address. 

Even if your company is worldwide and your location isn't important to prospects, a supplier or prospective employee could be searching for directions, or just a phone number. Why not make it easy for them?

There are two major reasons to display your address prominently on your website. The first is to make it easy for people to find you, but even more important is search engine optimization. 

Here are some things you can do to improve both:

Google My Business

Google places for business is an excellent tool for businesses of all sizes, and best of all it's free! Whether or not you are interested in local business, a listing in Google Places has many advantages.

When people search for your business, it will pull up a Google map, phone number and other information about your company. If someone just wants your phone number or address, they don't have to click on your website. Very useful for people searching for your business with mobile devices.

In addition to displaying your company's contact information, Google will pull up your business for searches in areas of close proximity. 

Learn how to set up a free Google My Business listing for your company.

Meta Description

A meta description is a short paragraph to let searchers know whether the associated page contains the information they're looking for.

If you don't include a meta description, Google will pull up random copy from your webpage. Since Google only shows the first 150-160 characters, this is probably not a succinct message that describes your website.

The purpose of the meta description is to entice visitors to click or call. This is your opportunity to create a free ad for your company and control what Google shows searchers.

Learn how to add a meta description to your site.

Surprisingly, most of the companies I searched for had no Google Places and/or meta descriptions. These are basic things that don't cost anything to implement. 

In addition to Google places and meta descriptions, make sure your contact information is properly displayed on your website.

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