Business Owners Miss Out on Hundreds Worth of Free Advertising

Online, February 6, 2010 (Newswire.com) - Search for any local business in Google, for example, "Hair Salon Las Vegas" or "Masonry San Diego" and you will see a map with several business listings on top of the organic results. These listings get the best spot on the page, are free, and you don't even need a web site to get listed there.

However, the majority of these listings lay unclaimed by their owners and often have incomplete information, many have wrong or disconnected phone numbers associated with them! This leaves potential customers with no other choice but to find someone else.

This is mostly due to people not knowing they get a free business listing and they are blissfully unaware that they are leaving a lot of potential business on the table.

Many will be surprised by the amount of people that use Google to find local businesses this way. To put it into perspective, 22,200 people searched "Dentist Las Vegas" in January 2010 alone, which will lead many to wonder how much free advertising they might be missing out on.

Local business owners would be wise to claim their local listing, make sure all their information is correct, add some photos, and add more details about their business. By doing this, it could help boost their listing higher than their unclaimed competitors and also help with conversions.

To take it a step further, you can hire a professional to optimize it for you so that your business can get listed on the first page, or even in the top spot.