If you are attempting to set up your business on Google Places, and you are in a small remote town, generally speaking you won’t need an expert.  That is unless you are a restaurant, hotel, realtor or other category who has many competitors even in a small town.  If you are in a large city and you are also in a competitive industry, getting on the 7-pack (the outside MAP) you see when searching for that category by city or zip code, then you should probably hire someone like us if you hope to get highly ranked on Google Places.

A great recent example of this was a long time client of ours who is in one of the most difficult business categories in one of the most difficult cities in the US…Mortgage Broker Los Angeles.  With our level of skill, we were able to easily get him to the top of the 7 pack for his zip code and some zip codes around him, but the Los Angeles 7-pack was more elusive.  Then last week, we hit pay dirt, and the clients phone is ringing off the hook.

What were the winning components:

• Great Website at www.MortgageHelpLosAngeles.com
• Massive upload to local search engines and directories
• Optimized listings on many local search engines and directories
• Links on serious, well produced articles, press releases, and videos
• Highly optimized listing on Google Places

A little research will show that a AdWords campaign for this Mortgage Broker Los Angeles will cost close to $14 per click.  Getting his website to rank on page 1 for this keyword might cost another $4000 or so.  But through the use of tools that are beneficial in their own right (as opposed to paid links of dubious value other than juicing the website), we were able to push him to the 2nd spot on Google Places.  By adding a Google Places Tag, he has an added advantage over even the first place listing.  We will now mount a review campaign to attempt to push him to number one.  Again, the reviews have value in and of themselves, so are not merely an SEO trick to improve his rank.

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