Last month, Google announced Place Search, a new way of displaying search results for local businesses. Place Search makes Place Pages, local business profiles with basic information such as address, telephone number and official website as well as both Google and third-party reviews, figure more prominently in Google search results. A dramatic change, Place Search is likely to have a considerable impact on local search engine optimization.

Before Place Search, when users googled a place, relevant local search results were presented in a “7-pack,” or seven basic listings for area businesses that most closely matched the search Accompanying the 7-Pack was a Google Map that showed the locations of these listings, which displayed at the top of search results. Here’s an example of what the 7-pack looked like using the search term “personal injury lawyer San Diego, CA”:

Now that Place Search is in effect, when users search for a keyword that Google’s algorithm detects as a regional keyword, Google automatically switches to Places search. In Places search, Google shows only local results, which are tagged with a red push pin. Each local search result shows the location’s basic identifying information, including street address, phone number and official website, with related results from third-party websites clustered beneath. For instance, here’s what pops up when you search for “personal injury lawyer san diego ca” today:

Here’s a closer look at a single Place search result. Notice that this listing presents much more information than the bare-bones 7-pack listings.

If it’s not apparent whether or not the user is searching for a place, Google will display a combination of local and regular web results. For example, a search for the ambiguous term “desert” from a computer with a Phoenix IP address turns up this screen:

These search results are a mix of Place pages indicated with a red pushpin and regular web results such as the desert Wikipedia entry and a web page about desert biodomes.

Google’s new way of displaying local SERPs is likely to lead to a major change in local online marketing for regional businesses. Before the advent of Place Search, the goal was to land in the 7-Pack. Now, the focus will probably shift to making sure Place Pages are informative and fully fleshed out as well as getting links from third-party websites that will appear in the clustered results, such as Yelp, Citysearch, Insiderpages, Urbanspoon, TripAdvisor, Yahoo Local and Judysbook.

Place Search isn’t available in mobile search yet, but will be available soon.

As Google just launched Place Search, there are likely to be more changes in recent months. CyberMark will research these changes and their effects to help you adjust your local SEO campaign for the best results. To discuss how we can optimize your business online for Place Search, please contact us today.