Have you noticed the big changes over at Google?

It’s Easier Than Ever to Get Ranked #1 in Google

For many years now, it’s been difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for small, local businesses to get exposure in Google.

You either had to pay $5 per-click with Google AdWords (or much more, depending on your industry) — or, you had to invest months (and thousands of dollars, even tens of thousands of dollars) into traditional search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to gain a Top 10 listing.

For years, that meant that most small business owners couldn’t afford to compete.

Luckily, these days it’s faster, easier, and more affordable than ever to show up in Google.

How Fast And Easy Is It?

Every situation is a little different, depending on the strength of your competition. If you’re in a big market like New York City, you’ll obviously have more competitors gunning for the top spots, so it’ll be more difficult.

But most of the time, we’re able to rank our clients’ businesses on the first page of Google Places (and often the #1 spot) for their target keywords within just 30 days. And it’s straight forward enough that you can easily do it yourself, even if you’re not a marketing whiz or a tech geek.

This is really good news for ANY type of business that’s serving local customers. Best of all, I’m willing to bet the vast majority of your competitors have no idea how to do this. So I recommend you take advantage of this opportunity sooner rather than later.

We put together this video for you, which explains our methodology for getting your business ranked #1 in Google in 30 days:

Video: The Local SEO Formula

What Happened – What Did Google Change?

In a nutshell, Google has made local business listings much more prominent in millions of search results.

Google is now displaying local business results above the “Top 10” regular search results. In addition, Google is now showing local results – even if you don’t specify your location in your search. For example, if you just search “sushi” in Google, you’ll see local results, because Google assumes that that’s what you’re looking for.

Pretty cool huh?

These local “map” business listings are called Google Places. And the process of getting your website to rank at the top of Google Places is called local search engine optimization – or “local SEO” for short.

Why Did Google Make This Change?

Simple. Local search is booming. More people are searching for local products and services online than ever before. And all signs point to local SEO becoming more and more important in the years to come.

According to Google:

  • 20% of all Google searches are related to location
  • 40% of all mobile searches are related to location
  • 97% of consumers search for local businesses online

Basically, by making local business results more prominent, Google is simply showing people what they want to find.

What Does This Mean for Your Business?

Consider these 2 facts…

Fact #1.More people are searching for local businesses than ever.

Fact #2. Google is displaying local business results more prominently than ever.

Add those two up, and you have a great opportunity — assuming you know how to get your business ranked in Google’s local results. If you can get ranked at the top, you’ll get in front of more potential customers than ever.

How Can You Take Advantage of This?

Fortunately, local SEO is much simpler than “traditional” search engine optimization. There are really only 5 simple steps you must take to get your business ranked in Google’s local results.

We lay out all 5 steps for you in this new video:

Video: The Local SEO Formula

 

Questions?

Do you have questions about local search engine optimization (SEO)? Post a comment below and we’ll be glad to help you out as best we can.