A few years ago, at the 2007 Strategic Advertising Summit, Microsoft mogul, Bill Gates, predicted yellow pages usage would drop to near zero by the year 2012 for people under the age of 50. Gates’ prediction seems to be coming true as the yellow pages are beginning to see double digit declines in advertising sales, as their former users are now turning to a faster, friendlier and easier way to find local businesses—the Internet.

While the Internet is the bane of the yellow pages’ demise, with a 72.11% market-strangling hold on Internet searches, it is a Google Marketing plan called Google Places that is leading the way.

Simply put, Google has become the new “yellow pages.” When you compare their market-dominating 72.11% of all Internet searches to their nearest competitor, Yahoo, with an unremarkable 14.57% of Internet searches, the case is made that every local business should concentrate all their Internet marketing efforts on Google and Google alone.

Let’s face it. If your business does not show up on Google, you are basically invisible to the world. And, if your business can’t be found on the first two pages of Google, you (almost) don’t exist because 83% of Google searches do not make it past the bottom of Google’s second page.

My Google Marketing Plan eManual, will show you how to dominate your local competition with a high ranked, fully optimized listing in the prominent Google Places Directory /Google Maps search engine results.

I’ll walk you through the steps needed to optimize your Google Places listing through several simple techniques that work together to create an overall, competition-crushing strategy. The combination of these techniques is greater as a whole than is the sum of its parts…and while you can surely skip some of the seemingly small techniques that make up part of this strategy, it will subtract from the dominance you gain by employing all of the steps together.

Forget Traditional SEO

Traditional SEO is costly and very time consuming…and definitely not where local businesses need to spend their time (or money).  Achieving top page rank can be extremely competitive and traditional SEO placement is a moving target that changes dramatically all the time, literally shaking things up and turning the search results upside down every six months or so.

Local small business advertising is critical for getting new customers. If you own a business and that business relies on a customer base in your local area, then it’s time to ditch traditional thinking and join the Local Search revolution. What is local search?

Take a look at these stats:

• 73% of all online activity is related to local content (Google)

• 66% of Americans use the Internet to find local businesses (Comscore)

• 54% of Americans have replaced their phone books (yellow pages) with Internet searches (Comscore)

• 82% of local searchers follow up with their search by phone call and/or walk-in (TMP / Comscore)

• 43% of search engine users are seeking a local merchant with the intent of buying in their local area

Local Search is the Answer

As a local business, you have a huge, wide-open opportunity to dominate your local competition by getting a free, prominent listing at the top of Google business sites, using Google’s local search features. Google has spent a large investment on becoming the most relevant search engine to its users, as Google understands that if you live in Las Vegas and you do a search for pizza, they know you want a pizza place in Las Vegas—not in Detroit.

By learning how to use Google local search tools you gain an ultimate secret weapon for your local business to climb to the top of Google search results in your area. Forget about traditional SEO and expensive pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Local Search is king…and getting your business listed on top of Google’s local search features is absolutely free, making your investment into this book a complete “no-brainer.”

You simply fill out the data form and provide Google business information including your address, hours, pictures, videos, search engine friendly descriptions and raving reviews that sing the praise of your business.

I am not just singing the praises of local search, but instead, wrote this to help you dominate your competition in your local area through local search using step-by-step, actionable methods.

Simply put… if you can follow step-by-step instructions, you can open the virtual floodgates of more business through new leads, increased sales, more visibility and additional customers.

You can learn more at www.GoogleMarketingPlan.com