The original article is one I wrote for RetirementHomes.com. You can find it here http://www.retirementhomes.com/library/4-components-to-getting-your-community-a-top-free-local-search-listing/

According to Chitika, 24% of searches have a local intent on Google search results. This means people are using the major search engines to find local businesses and more information locally. This is huge and the search engines have been taking action.

In our market, everything is local. Especially online.

The typical way a prospect searches is “the service they’re looking for + the town they’re looking for it in”.

Why this really matters, is major search engines are giving away their top advertising spots to local businesses. There is a service for local businesses called Google Places. Google Places are the local business results with the pushpin markers on the search results. These listings are free to the local businesses that take advantage and verify their listing.

These listings are displayed to prospects who are early in the research phases. They’re not yet looking for a specific community. For example, a listing will be displayed when someone types “assisted living Springfield MA”. This is where’s it’s critical to get your community in front of them.

If you do a search for Google places you’ll find where you can claim your community’s listing. To find Yahoo, and Bing’s services, just go to the respected search engines and type in “add local business listings to (insert search engine’s name)” and you’ll find the appropriate places.

When filling out the listings there’s 4 critical elements you need to have in order to achieve a top listing.

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