The Google Local Business Center is a tool that allows business owners to more effectively relate genuinely to customers searching on Google for information regarding local business. It puts business owners in control of the business listings and helps them to provide information regarding their businesses that is authoritative, helpful, and, timely.

The Local Business Center (LBC) is even useful for businesses that not have Websites as Google\'s LBC makes it possible to allow them to use the area business listing as their presence on the Web.

Becoming a member of an account with the LBC - and adding or claiming your neighborhood business listing - must be a top priority for your company for five key reasons:

1- Your Customers and Competitors\' Customers Search Google to find Local Businesses

The Google Local Business search engine - which you will find at either local.Google.com or maps.Google.com (maps is, definitely, the very popular of the two) - gets an average of more than 50 million unique visitors every month.

That\'s a lot of people searching each month for, among other items, local businesses to buy from.

And although it\'s advisable to register for local business accounts at Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines, a Google Local Business account must be your immediate priority because Google may be the runaway leader in local business search market share, with an increase of than double the area business search market share of maps.yahoo.com, maps.bing.com, and yellow.pages.com combined.

Take note that links, images and videos can be located on the author\'s Website - the address for which appears in the Resource Box of this article.

Needless to say, regardless of Google\'s best efforts to promote the LBC des commerces et des services de Matagami - and the using maps.Google.com - there are lots of millions of people who still utilize the google.com Website, even though looking for local business information. And, as you\'ll learn next section, that offers local businesses a chance to capture some space towards the top of Google\'s "traditional" Web search results.

2- A Google Local Business Listing Can Take One to the Top of Google

Google\'s launch of universal search in May 2007 meant that content from Google Images, Google Local/Maps, Google Video, and so forth could be integrated into its "traditional" Web search results pages.

Which means that Google can - and often does - serve up local business listings within the Web search results even when location is not specified (it appears that Google\'s search algorithm has the capacity to detect "local intent").

It\'s increasingly common to find Google local business listings on the first page of search results - often towards the top - whilst the "Google Local Business Seven-Pack" (a reference, obviously, to the fact Google displays the utmost effective seven local business search results in a bunch of seven).

Alternatively, Google may display a research query box at the the top of search results page that asks searchers: Trying to find local results for keyword?

In either case, a Google Local Business listing can put a company on the fast-track to a coveted position towards the top of Google\'s search results that could have been impossible to fully capture otherwise.

3 - People Who Search Google for Local Businesses Take Action

A Google-sponsored, comScore.com study that viewed the significance of search in influencing offline buying behaviour found that 25% of searchers purchased an item directly related with their search queries, and that, of these buyers, 37% completed their purchases online while a level greater 63% completed their purchases offline following their search activity.

The research results underscore the fact a Google Local Business listing is not just good at driving traffic but, more to the point, it is good at driving traffic that converts.

4 - The Advent of Google Local Look for Mobile

While they continue steadily to be sophisticated and the browsing experience continues to enhance, access to the Internet via cell phones will continue steadily to rise. In reality, Gartner predicts that access to the Internet via mobile phones will overtake PCs by 2013.

Google has clearly understood for quite a long time the synergy between local search and the mobile Web, as some key developments suggest:

· Google\'s July 2005 acquisition of Android Inc, a company of software for cell phones (which started triggered speculation that Google was looking to dive into the mobile phone market; the acquisition also eventually generated the development of the Android mobile operating system)

· Google\'s September 2009 launch of a better Local Look for Mobile allows users to, among other items, "star" search results on their PCs and have them automatically appear on their cell phones; in addition it allows users to locate by browsing local business categories without typing (the video on the author\'s Website offers a brief introduction to the functionality of Google Local Look for Mobile)

· Google\'s November 2009 $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob (on the heels of a five-fold increase in mobile search traffic over the previous two years)

· Google\'s December 2009 distribution of Favourite Places decals to more 100,000 of the most sought-out and searched US businesses on Google.com and maps.Google.com (see the video on the author\'s Website for information on Favourite Places)

· Google\'s January 2010 entry into the mobile phone market that finally ended years of speculation about Google\'s plans for the mobile phone market

Naturally, Google will continue steadily to innovate in both the area search space and in the mobile web search space. The important thing takeaway is that the businesses that get aboard early could be the ones to reap the maximum rewards. And everything takes to get aboard is to see the Google LBC and claim or add your neighborhood business listing.

5 - The Google LBC is Simple to Use and It\'s Free

If you\'ve already got a Google account, you can simply sign into the Google LBC and begin right away. In the event that you don\'t have a Google account, all you\'ve got to complete is register for starters (you can sign through to the LBC sign-in page).

The video on the author\'s Website offers a brief walk through of the easy process for signing into the Google LBC and claiming (or adding) your neighborhood business listing.

As Google continues to promote local search, usage of local search by consumers will only increase. And considering that consumers who employ local search are buyers, don\'t you think that you need to register for Google\'s LBC and get your neighborhood listing doing work for your company today?