Until the
invention of the Local Business Listings Google had two sets
of results, AdWords and natural. Placing some ads around the
natural listings was a perfectly acceptable thing to do but
Google is limited by the number of ads they can show due to
the size of the page. Adding 4 or 5 ads at the top simply
wasn’t going to help the user experience.
Fast
forward a few years and Google invented the Local Business
Listings and suddenly started displaying them for one in
every 13 searches (and virtually all the time for
geographical searches).
This is
probably the cleverest move by Google since the launch of
AdWords 10 years ago because it gives Google a 2nd area of
the page to fill with ads and a huge ready made inventory of
impressions and advertisers – in any competitive industry
every single result in the Local Business Listings will
become “enhanced” overnight.
Google has
always been very much against having paid listings within
the natural results but it seems that they are more than
happy to have paid listings appearing within the Local
Business Listings and on the listing pages.

The
introduction and subsequent monetising of the Local Business
listings is one of the cleverest online advertising moves of
the last five years. Nothing will top Facebook Ads which
allow advertisers to pay to drive traffic from one Facebook
page to another but this comes a close second.
Below are
some more details from Google about the program:
What
are the benefits?
-
You
can easily and inexpensively highlight your listing
on Google Maps and Google.com from the Local
Business Center.
-
Potential customers in your local area will see what
you think is most important or unique about your
business.
-
You
can track the effectiveness of your enhancement with
your Local Business Center dashboard.
-
You
will be charged a low $25 flat monthly fee, with no
bids and no keywords required.
-
There is no additional work or ongoing management
needed.
-
What enhancements can I use?
-
You
can decide what type of enhancement you’d like to
show with your business listing. You can only pick
one at a time, but you can change or remove the
enhancement whenever you’d like.
You can
select any of the following enhancements:
-
Website for your business.
-
Photos of your business.
-
Videos of your business.
-
Coupons for your listing.
-
Menu for your restaurant.
-
Reservations page for your business.
-
Driving directions to your business.