The small business crowd is constantly asking me why is it important to know about and pursue Google Places listings and what is local SEO. I have been doing this for quite some time so allow me to put some answers to the questions here.

Almost 72% of all local searches on the Internet result in a on-line or off-line purchase. Think about that statistic for a moment…. These are staggering numbers! When a potential customer searches the Internet for a keyword term, for example “dentist”, Google will return local business results specific to the geographic location of the user. The user is presented with both local business results (Google Places) and organic results as well. I will get into organic results later, but for now let’s keep focused on the local results. In most cases the local listings will be presented above the organic results thus making these listings very prominent to the user. In all cases the Google map will be shown at the top of the page, thus getting the users attention. This is a huge opportunity for local businesses to capture an interested (targeted) potential customer.

Google Search Results

If your Google Places listing is on the first page of the search results (and it can be with the right optimization) you will get traffic to your website and phone calls. It is a proven fact that people searching the Internet will very rarely surf to the second or third page of the search results. So it is imperative that your listing be on the first page. Google generally displays only 7 listings (there are some exceptions) on the first page of the listings. Your listing must be in the top 7 listings to get any attention.

I hope you can see the importance of having a “claimed” and “optimized” Google Places listing for your business. These mini sites are a magnet for customers searching for your services or products!

Now let’s spend a few minutes on the organic results of the search results page. If your website is optimized for your city name and your profession (ie: San Francisco Dentist) the likelihood of a searcher finding your site is greatly improved. In fact, having a locally optimized website and a strong Google Places listing, you may be displayed twice on the first page of Google! Now that is what you should be shooting for. This situation is ideal for attracting customers as you get two chances to get their attention.

Many web-masters are great at building beautiful web sites yet they lack the understanding of ranking (SEO). Without proper optimization techniques applied to your web site no one will find it, thus it is nothing more than an electronic business card!

This is where we can help, Elite Web Services specializes in optimizing both web sites and your local listings.