In October Google introduced a brand new local search strategy in addition to a new, re-vamped version of Google Places called Place Search. This new strategy may soon be felt – if it hasn’t yet impacted your local business – by any business focused on attracting local customers and in outshining their local competitors on the search engines (and what business owner isn’t focused on this goal?).  Being found by your customers on Google is now a new ballgame and re-visiting your local search strategy is something your company should add to your digital marketing To-Do list.

What changed in Google Place local search?

First off, the local search 7 box is being eliminated and the search results now blend local and organic results together. Consequently, this might affect many small and medium sized businesses that initially were ranking in the top 10 on the 1^st results page and now might find themselves pushed to the 2^nd results page.

Google’s is now predicting your location and generating local results even when the searcher does not include a city name or location in their query; this feature that may be convenient, but may also correspondingly affect your business’ ranking on the search engine results page. Then Google has moved the local results map to the right hand side of the results page and has allowed the map to scroll down over the right hand Adword sponsored listings.

So how do you get ranked with the new Google Places Page

With these new changes from Google (and we can expect to see more testing of different variations over the next 3 to 6 months), it might seem harder for businesses to achieve a good ranking even if you do have a properly-implemented Google Places Page. This is precisely why WSI has called upon our Internet Specialists to assess the possible effects this may cause for businesses of all industries. The digital world is never at a stand-still; it’s endlessly evolving and it’s our goal to ensure your business is growing along with it. It is – after all – critical to your business’ online presence that you claim, optimize and participate on your Google Places Page!