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Guest post by: Wolfgang Bloomfield Become an Author

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Why is the first page of Google so important to local businesses and how can it help them?

Many local businesses have had a hard time lately. Lots of high streets all over the western world have empty shops, as lots of businesses have had to close down, due to the economical climate of recent years. This has had the effect of high unemployment and a shortage of money, for everyone that has a physical business.

Traditional forms of local advertising such as Yellow Pages and local newspaper adverts are not working anymore and they are getting more and more expensive because they have had to increase the prices for local businesses, in an attempt to recoup the loss in revenue they have had.

Times are changing, and local businesses are falling behind, as they don´t know what they can do about the current climate. True, some have had their own websites built, only to be disappointed by the results that they have had from them and have wasted a lot of money paying expensive website designers thousands of dollars for flashy websites.

The truth is that it’s just not good enough to have a website built for it only to disappear into cyber space, as 95% of them do, never getting found by the people who are looking for them. The fact is that 70%+ of people now search online to find the services and products that they are looking for, and these people would prefer to buy from a local businesses.

It´s not all bad news though, Google have recognized this and they have done something about it, it´s called Google places. So now when you do a search for a service, they do their best to deliver local results. They even show you where that service is located, by showing you a map, with a little flag on it, this happens even if you don´t specify the area, as Google knows by the I.P. address of the computer searching for it.

Some local businesses are using this service now, and have seen good results from it. The problem though is that the first pages are already filling up fast, and unless local businesses claim their listings fast, whilst there is still time, the first pages will be gone forever.

Why is it so important to get the first page listing? Well it´s a fact with any listing, whether it is for a website, or for Google Places, that most searchers do not look beyond the first page, some may look on the second page, but barely any look at the third page.

Which brings me back to talking about websites that are never found by the people that are looking for them, and the reason for this is, that these websites are not using the power of SEO (search engine optimization) you see if the Google bots (robots that crawl a site to see what it is about) can´t properly understand what the site is about, Google will not present it to the searchers. This is the case for around about 95% of sites out there.

The fact is that local businesses now really have to get a website whether they want one or not, not only do they have to get a website, but it also has to have good on page search engine optimization, to get found, firstly by the Google bots, and secondly by the searchers who are looking for it.

It´s also a fact that a lot of website designers know little or nothing about SEO, it´s true that they can give you a pretty website, but what’s the use of that if it can’t be found. Not only do you need a website, but you also need it to be on the first page of Google and the other search engines. So what are the choices that you have available to you?

Well you have the choice of learning how to do this for yourself, (if you can fit this into your busy schedule) but you can expect it to take at quite a lot of time for you to learn how to do it, and it will also give you a lot of headaches, and expect to make some mistakes.

Or you could save yourself a lot of work, and use a professional company to do it for you, there are several Internet marketers out there that are offering their services, and some Internet marketers do have the experience to do this sort of work, but choose carefully.

What will this do for your business? I hear you ask, some people have experienced 70% more business within a few months, what will that do for your profits? What if you only get 10 new enquiries a week, well it depends what line of business you are in, but if you are a dentist then I suspect that it will do quite a lot for your business. I don’t want to promise the earth, but it could be 10 new enquiries a day.

Think of the money you would save by not spending on local newspaper ads, and on Yellow pages who promise you nothing at all.

I hope that you can now see the benefits of being on the first page of Google, and that you now understand the importance of it, and how it will help your local business.

It´s up to you to decide what to do, but you cannot afford to take this lightly, the Internet and Internet marketing is taking over the way that people look for your services, and the way that people now shop, ignore this at your peril.

If you have enjoyed this article please feel free to share with your friends, they might also benefit from it.

Here’s to your success,

Wolfgang

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