earlpearl - 6:28 pm on Nov 19, 2007 (gmt 0)

Google Maps being inserted into organic google serps has a significant and definite impact on traffic and awareness of local businesses.

During most of this year Google has been experimenting and changing some aspects of maps. Sometimes the map will show at the top of the search page, other times, contingent on its evaluation of sites and serps (according to Google) it adjusts the placement of maps and drops its appearance under a couple of organic searches.

One can advertise specifically within google maps.

First, one needs to enter their data in the google business center as outlined above. That is critical. I'd also enter data in the Yahoo Local business center (or whatever it is called).

One other thing is to generate a wide variety of related terms for your business service within its region/city/town/state. Use variations on the main term(s) i.e. stemming and different terms for the main business service within your site for your services; ie. tennis racquets, tennis supplies, tennis store, tennis shop, tennis stringing etc with your town/city/geography.

Sometimes google's maps algo is way off for variations on terms.

For instance for advertising agency in any city Google maps lists actual agencies; for advertising agencies it has totally bad results and in some cases isn't injecting maps into the serps.

Dave

Moderator's note: I'm allowing the above limited references to specific search terms in this post only, to illustrate principles involved in local targeting, which are not all that different from SEO targeting in general, except that location is also involved.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 7:24 pm (utc) on Nov. 19, 2007]
[edit reason] removed some specifics [/edit]