Google or yellow page sites? Where should you be? On one or in the others? In 1? 2? 3? Oh my.

Just when I thought I was done, Myles Anderson posted this absolutely great research over at Searchengineland.com on how the Google Panda updates have impacted the traffic on yellow page sites, and I can’t keep silent about it.

(Notice I have not capitalized “yellow page” there. If you read Part 2 of this series, you’ll know why.)

I hope you read that post in its entirety, but I also know most people aren’t as nerdy as I am to even care for that many numbers and that much explanation, nor do they have the time, so I’ll summarize here for you with some important takeaways on what it means for your local business.

Or would hiring an SEO and a #1 position be worth the investment?

If you haven’t already, read the prologue to this post. If you don’t want to bother, then here’s a bit of info to set the stage.

In that post I showed how chiropractors in Scotts Valley were just about rendered invisible because Google bestowed a “Site Links” blessing on another chiropractor in town for the query “Scotts Valley chiropractic.” Dr. Hinde, though in position 2, looked like a mere mortal, while Dr. Thibodeau apparently achieved sainthood. On other queries, though, all chiropractors appeared to be on an equal playing ground, yet Dr. Thibodeau still reigned supreme.

This post answers the question, should Dr. Hinde in position 2 for the more popular and lucrative keyword “chiropractor” try for position 1? He also commands the first THREE positions for “Scotts Valley chiropractic office.” Is that enough?

And what about the other chiropractors further down the page and on other pages? Is it worth their time and investment in SEO to try to improve their rank in Google?

This time we look at where on the SERP (search result page) commands the most attention

One of my favorite sources for SEO information, SEOmoz, recently posted their results of an eye-tracking study they did to show how consumers are trying to find local businesses. I could just point a link to their post, which I’ll do here anyway, but I wanted to bring over their study and images because I have some additional points I wanted to make. Here’s their post. And here’s the Kat & Mouse take.

Online or off? Google? Local directories? Facebook? Where?

Last week I showed you some data that revealed where people were looking online to find local businesses. That was part 1 of this series on where people are looking for local businesses.

That report was published in October, 2011. The same research firm released some other numbers back in March. I’m not sure what they say is much different, but I think the chart is clearer, so I wanted to share this with you as well.

ONLINE sources people check BEFORE visiting a local business or restaurant

A Primer on Optimizing a Local Business in Google

[2014 Addendum: The advice in this post is still relevant even though Google Places has now become Google Plus Local.]

Until I get my ebook done which will be full of the best advice from all the best local search experts in the world, here are some slides I prepared for my local  SEO/Google Places presentation to help you optimize your Google Place page and to get it to rise to the top.

Many changes have occurred since it was written, thanks to Google’s fickle nature, but most everything here is still relevant.

Enjoy and then return later for that promised Local SEO ebook.

Not number 1? Don’t despair. There are things you can do.

Where you are in Google Places matters, as we would expect, but if you’re not on the top, there are things you can do to get your fair share of the clicks, thanks to this great study from “Mediative” that is revealed in their white paper called “Eye Tracking and Click Mapping Google Places.”

Their study involved 12 participants who came to Mediative’s eye-tracking research lab in Toronto, Canada and 90 online from whom Mediative tracked actual clicks.

The question they were asked was: “If you are in [city] looking for a tatoo artist. Where would you click next?” They repeated the test for 3 cities to compare different actions that might occur as a result of the different query results that would appear.