Google Places Optimization and Local SEO Blog

HOWEVER Google Places is full of bugs, hijacking, fraud and other security problems, so if you haven’t yet you REALLY need to claim your listing which provides partial protection – but it does not by any means provide full protection so you really need to monitor your listing at least weekly.

We have a successful mature Chiropractic practice (24 years) with many happy patients, but couldn’t be found at the top of Google’s 1st page. Now 2 weeks later we are #2 on Google, right at the top. It’s great getting calls from new patients from the web that may not have found us otherwise.

Few things grate on me more than hearing my fellow SEOs talk about how easy LOCAL SEO is. There’s less competition! The competition isn’t SEO savvy! Keyword choices are limited! It’s a piece of cake, they say. Sweeping generalizations are often wrong, and below I’ll show why LOCAL SEO isn’t as easy as many think it is.