Hot off the press! Today Google announced a fundamental change in the way they display local listings. Called Google Place Search, it’s set to dramatically increase the importance of small businesses having a well-optimized Google Places listing.
Here’s how the new service works:
When you type in a general search like ‘IT support’, Google will continue to [...]

We’ve mentioned David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors article before – it’s a crucial guide to the ins and outs of how Google (in particular) determines where in the Google Places results a local listing will show up.
Each year David Mihm surveys a number of top SEO practitioners regarding the local listing results they’ve seen, [...]

We’ve been telling every small business we talk to in the last six months that they should be claiming and optimizing their local listings in the major search engines; this strategy includes getting reviews of your business.
The impact of reviews on local search marketing results – I think people intuitively understand that having reviews of your business [...]