One thing every Active Rain member should do immediately is go through the steps to list your business on Google Local. Don't know what Google Local is?
It's basically their mapping portal, but it's really much more than that. I'll explain why.
Google has been including Google Local results at the top of generic search results for awhile now. When Joe Homebuyer types in "Yourtown Real Estate," there are a number of ways he can find your site.
- Organic Search
It is the holy grail of most website owners to be #1 for their targeted keywords in organic search. This means that Joe Homebuyer finds your site in numbers 1 through 10 of the search results. The higher, the better, of course. - Pay Per Click Advertising
Google's system is called Adwords (not to be confused with Adsense, their revenue sharing system for content owners--I'll write more about these later). This means that Joe Homebuyer clicks on one of your ads in the top or the sidebar of Google's results and kaching, you just spent a buck or two for a visitor (or more, depending on the current price of your keyword). - Google Local Results
For many search terms that include a city name (such as Yourtown Real Estate), Google will show local businesses ABOVE the search results. This means you can show up BEFORE the number one listed site just by taking the time to get your business listed in your city.
Go to Google and type in the name of the city you do business along with the type of business you're in. For most Active Rain users, it will be "Yourtown Real Estate." You will probably see a few local business listed like this:
Local results for real estate near Yourtown, ID
Below this heading will be several local businesses, and yours could be one of them. Of course, larger cities have more competition, and Google may rotate matching businesses through the lineup. But it's absolutely free to be listed.
Of course, don't depend on Google Local for search traffic. There's really no replacement for a search engine friendly website with well-written content, meta description tags, keywords, h1 tags, etc. But business owners who do not take the time to get listed in Google Local are missing an easy potential source of website traffic, and therefore leads.
To sign up for Google Local, just go to the maps.google.com page and click the link in the left sidebar that says:
"Business Owners: Add/Edit Your Business"
It's that simple.
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Posted by 
Kevin,
Great advice. There is nothing better than a free way to get some more exposure! And Google makes sure Google is at the top don't they? It does raise my eyebrow that they are stuffing what they believe to be the most relevant results right at the top. Whatever happened the "uniquely democratic nature of the inernet" that Google wrote about in their patent application? Have they tossed that out the window?
Oh well, "When in Rome...". It's still a great way to put your business at the top!
Silverdale Real Estate