Local Search, Google Places

Information About Your City, Town, or Neighbourhood

Local Business Benefits

Local Search makes it possible for smaller local businesses to take advantage of the tremendous marketing power of the internet.

Google knows there are many more small businesses than large businesses, so they’ve been working hard to make their search engine good at showing results for websites of businesses and associations near to where the searcher is located, that is, in their Local area.

Of course some people search the internet for world-wide information most people search for information about their city or town, or even about their neighbourhood.  Google has become very good at integrating their functional maps into search results.  We start you off by professionally setting up a free “Google Places” account for you, and making sure it works together properly with your website to increase your rankings.

In the fall of 2010 Google started displaying Google Places accounts in the organic listings for Canadian searches.  In addition Google now has the ability to check your website browser, e.g. Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome, to see what websites you’ve visited recently and will show you websites in their search results similar to your past choices.

Local Search is increasing in importance with the spread of smart phones such as iPhones and phones with the Android operating system.  They have Global Positioning Systems (GPS) which Google can use to show search results closest to your current location, if you’re searching for “pizza” or “coffee shop” for example.