Customized, Branded Maps For Your Clients

It's been almost two weeks since Google announced the "My Maps" addition to Google Maps, and I've had a chance to create several of these custom maps on behalf of my clients. They're easy to make and you can learn on the fly.

This is a great tool for real estate agents to use and show your clients. Create a personalized map to show where your office is, identify current listings, or highlight community landmarks, schools and points of interest. You can also convert your map to a Google Earth file.

 

These new features are a great addition to Google Maps - the best mapping web site for the masses that I've found. Now with the ability to save and add information with placemarks, it's a much more comprehensive and useful product.

Because it's editable, you can create a map and continue to build upon it in the future.

For a real estate listings map, this is an essential feature. As listings get sold, delete the placemark. As new listings come on the market, add a new placemark.


Getting Started

To create a customized Map, you must have a Google Account. After you've logged in, go to Google Maps and you can access the My Maps feature by clicking on the right tab within the left side panel.

Click on "create a new map" link and you're ready to get started.

For the purposes of this post, I'll be referring to a map I created for a real estate client based in my home town of Halifax, NS. The map can be found here

The first step is to name your map with a "Title". I called this map "Halifax Real Estate" - primarily because I'd love for this to show up (for my client) on a Google search of the same term. This map will be used as an ongoing marketing tool, linked from several web sites, so the title is appropriate for traffic specifically directed to this map, and also if someone stumbles across it.

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