Running a local business or retail store? Yes, then you may want to share your store location with your local customers. You can do that by sharing Google Maps (showing your store location) on your WordPress site.
What’s more? You can also share multi-location Google maps if you are running your business at multiple locations. How does this help? Firstly, local customers can easily find your business. Secondly, Google Maps increase your website’s visibility on search engines, thus attracting more visitors.
The WP MAPS PRO plugin from Flipper Code helps you to add multi-location maps to your WordPress-powered site. Next, let us see why and how to add Google Maps to your WordPress website.
Why Add Google Maps to WordPress?
Why is Google Maps crucial for any business? Let’s start with some statistics. Google Maps has over 154 million monthly users, while over 5 million websites use Google Maps.
Effectively, Google Maps is the most popular app for navigational purposes. If you are running a corporate office, restaurant, or physical retail store, then it is beneficial to add Google Maps to your website. This can attract more customers to your location and increase your revenues.
According to Google, 46% of all search requests are for local businesses. With Google Maps added to your website, you can improve your SEO ranking and improve visibility for local searches. An additional advantage is that if you follow the recommended SEO practices, Google will also include your business location on Google Maps – along with added information like company name, logo, address, contact numbers, and working hours.
Next, let us discuss how to add Maps using the WP MAPS PRO plugin in WordPress.
How to add Google Maps to WordPress?
First, let us see how to add Google Maps to your WordPress site without investing in any plugin.
Here are the steps you need to perform:
- Sign in to the Google Maps site and specify the street address of your business location.
- Click the “Share” icon, which provides you with the following options:
- “Send a location” link
- “Embed a map” link
- Select the “Embed a map” option, and then copy the provided HTML code.
- Next, open the webpage where you want to include the map.
- Using the Block Editor tool, click the “Custom HTML” option.
- Paste the embedded code that you copied from Google Maps.
- Publish (or update) the webpage to view Google Maps embedded in the page.
This is a faster method but does not provide SEO benefits for your site. To increase your local SEO ranking, it is recommended that you use the next method with the WP MAPS PRO plugin. Next, let us see why you should use this plugin
Why should you use the WP MAPS PRO plugin for your business?
The WP MAPS PRO plugin enables you to create shortcodes for Google Maps and display the map on any webpage, widget, or blog post. You can add custom markers for each added Google Map and display customized messages in the markers.
Here are some of the benefits of using the WP MAPS PRO plugin on your WordPress site:
- Display unlimited locations on your website.
- Add multiple locations within the same map.
- The plugin is available in free and paid versions.
- Create different types of maps on your website including roadmap, satellite, terrain, and hybrid maps.
- 100% mobile responsive where maps can be read from any device or platform
- Create an interactive Google map for your website.
Among the best map plugin for WP sites, let us now see how to add this WP MAPS PRO plugin to your site.
How to add Google Maps to WordPress with Local SEO?
You can add Google Maps to your WordPress with local SEO benefits by installing the WP MAPS PRO plugin from the WordPress plugin repository.
Once you have installed and activated this plugin, here are the steps you need to execute to add Google Maps:
1. First, create one (or more) locations with the following details:
- Location Title (for example, “New York”)
- Address: to add this information, type the complete address of your business – or select from the matching addresses that are displayed once you start typing out the address.
- Custom message: this is displayed to the visitor as a marker and is useful in identifying the added location.
2. Once you added one or more locations, you can create the Google Map using this plugin.
After creating your Google Maps, you can modify or customize the map with the following options:
- Map width or height
- Zoom levels for your map
- Map type
- Disable (or enable) map zoom using the scroll wheel
- Enable (or disable) visual refresh of your added map
- Add 45o imagery (available only for Satellite and Hybrid map types)
Further, you can easily add this Google Map (using shortcodes) anywhere on your webpage or any post. From the “Manage Maps” page of this plugin, copy the shortcode for the selected map to be inserted. Next, open (or create) the page or post where you wish to insert the map – and then past the copied shortcode at the right location.
With the WP MAPS PRO plugin, you can modify the added map properties any time – and then just refresh the page (or post) to view the updated map.
Conclusion
In summary, adding Google Maps to your WordPress site is an effective mode of increasing your local SEO ranking and attracting more customers to your office or physical store. The WP MAPS PRO plugin from Flipper Code offers an easy method to add single or multi-location maps on WordPress sites.
With all its technical expertise, Flipper Code has enabled many local businesses to gain SEO benefits from Google Maps, Here is everything you want to know about the new Google Maps platform. Besides that, Flipper Code enables you to add beautiful Google Maps to your WordPress site using the WP Maps Pro plugin. This plugin offers a range of features including multiple listing designs, info-window designs, and displaying multiple map routes.
Looking for the best strategy to grow your local business? We can help you out. Just send us a message.