Google Places Business Listings Called Most Difficult Local Business Internet Marketing Tool

May 23, 2010 - PRLog -- Reality in 2010 for any local business owner that depends on local consumers or other local businesses for their survival... Google Places can make you or break you.  Randy Kirk of Page1Lsitings has been writing about small business for 30 years.  "Local business owners call us everyday in a panic.  They can't get on the MAP, or they were on the MAP and now they aren't any more.  Others are listed on the MAP, but their phone stops ringing if they aren't number one or "A" on the MAP.  Other businesses don't understand why their sales are down or they blame it on the recession.  Companies who have good positioning on Google Places are doing just fine in this recession!"

For those companies that are reading this article and are just waking up to the Google Places issue, the basics of getting listed are as simple as can be.  You go to local.Google.com and you set up a listing.  If you don't have a Google account, you will be prompted to set one up prior to claiming your business.  

Next, you merely fill out the form, click submit and follow the instructions to get a confirmation of your submission.  The entire process might take 15 minutes or so.  Google offers many helps on their site, and even a forum for you to check out how others are doing.  

Sounds like a piece of cake, right?  Kirk continues:  "At page1listings we do everything from create complex websites to helping companies with major search engine optimization issues on a local or international level.  These are sometimes extremely difficult tasks requiring and up-to-the-minute understanding of how the search engines are viewing websites today compared to a month ago.  As hard and sophisticated as the analysis is to do those jobs correctly, Google Places is harder yet."

In fact, internet marketing firms and Gurus like Kirk are setting up huge websites, blogs, ebooks, videos tutorials, and other tools designed to help the local bakery and dentist figure out how to get on that MAP.  "Getting a listing is easy," says Kirk.  "And You will be found on page 3 or 35 for any keyword you care about.  The place you want to be found is on that MAP on page one for searches under bakery near fresno or dentist Lincoln NE.  If you're not on the "outside" MAP, forget it."

Kirk says that his company cannot possibly help 39,000,000 owners nationwide to get on that outside MAP.  So his company set up a blog at http://www.GooglePlacesHelp.blogspot.com that includes over 40 pages of articles and posts detailing every aspect of how to optimize your position on Google Places.  Now the company is creating a series of videos by Kirk covering some of the same issues.  "Funny.  The first tutorial is on how to name your business.  Companies are changing their names in order to rank higher on the MAP!"

Page1Listings.com is taking some clients as they have space available.  Kirk explains:  "This Google Place phenomenon is only a few weeks old.  We hit the ground really fast with our GooglePlacesHelp.blogspot.com blog, and the phone havn't stopped ringing.  Imagine if there are 10 companies in the same business in one town, and there are only 7 spots on the map.  It is a free-for-all.  And we will not take competitors in the same town.  So the first one to call us in any business category is all we can help."

Finally there is the question of the future.  "I love to prognosticate about anything.  My crystal ball tells me that Google Places is going to dominate local business search.  Yelp, CitySearch, HotFrog, and YellowPages.com will be fighting over the scraps.  In print advertising you always wanted the back page of any magazine.  The location of Google Places is just like that back page.  Location is everything."

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The New Yellow Pages for Local Business is optimizing website visibility through Google Helps, websites, YouTube, LSE's, Forums, and other methods. Traditional marketing, too. We invented the box; Still thinking outside of it. www.SearchPage1.com

The blog is at http://www.GooglePlacesHelp.blogspot.com