Google My Business tools are 100% free - all you need to get started is a Gmail account.

Go to https://www.google.com/business/, click ‘Start Now’ and log in using your Gmail credentials. The page will guide you through a series of fields to enter your business name, address and phone number. It will ask you to choose a category for your business. Browse a list of categories here.  Moreover, you will have to set your location on the map:

Finally, you will be prompted to verify your listing:

Verification options differ, depending on the category of your listing. In most cases you should find three options:

Choose to verify by phone or text. You will receive a code. Enter that code where prompted for ‘verification’. This will make your listing open to the public.

Once your listing has gone live, the next step is to optimise it. First, visit this link to set up branded Google + and YouTube accounts to complement your map listing:

Second, visit https://business.google.com/manage/ for a comprehensive control panel:

Additionally, you will be able to upload photos, run live blog updates on YouTube, promote events, solicit user reviews and much more.

While optimising the Google map listing, you will have to make sure:

• the details are up-to-date
• that there are high-resolution images (avoid the generic ones)
• that no-one changed the site to their own affiliate link

After the optimisation, encourage the visitors to check in every time they visit your business and leave a review afterwards. Finally, you should continue making awesome content and build relevant citations to improve your local visibility.