Often, these listings will appear before organic website listings, which means they are more likely to be clicked upon.
NOTE: An all new and updated Guide To Ranking Your Business in Google has been published on my main website.
What does this mean to a business owner who is trying to get more visitors to come to their website? It means that it is harder to rank highly in search results and that means it's a lot harder to get visitors to their website.
With so much importance being put on Google Places rankings, most business owners still have not claimed their Google Places listing* - let alone done any work to optimize the listing for search engines.
Does this mean your website can't be found online? No, it doesn't. Some stand alone websites may still outrank the local listings, and sometimes even an "unclaimed" Google Places Listing can still rank on page 1 of search results. But this is the exception, however, not the norm.
Savvy business owners know better. The best way to ensure being seen in page 1 search results is to claim your Google Places listing, optimize it for search, and then build quality back links so that your site becomes stronger over time.
A business website with a long term search engine optimization strategy can become virtually "competition-proof". That means they have a solid hold on the coveted #1 position and are getting 40-50% of all the traffic for their target keywords.
If you would like to claim your Google Places Listing and do your own search engine optimization work, I have created the tutorials here with advice on how to do it yourself. If you'd rather focus on your business and hire me do it for you, I'd love to help you.
Either way, feel free to contact me with any questions. I promise to return your call or email.
Feedback/questions:
Mike Munter
503-890-6663
mike@mikemunter.com
Skype: mikemunter1
* Survey Source: Blumenthals.com/blog
