When you search in Google Maps, business show up with those red flag markers that link to entire pages about them.

Even more importantly, Google places these map listings at the top of even normal old searches if it thinks you are looking for something local.

If you don’t have a listing that appears in map results, you are missing out on the chance to appear at the top of certain search results.

Most people, most businesses do not have map listings yet. So you are competing against far fewer people compared to the usual search results because most websites get crawled by google just by sitting there, making the competition for the standard search result much more difficult.

All you need to do to get your own is create an account with something called Google Places.

So what are you waiting for? Go to http://places.google.com/business, create your listing and start getting found in those local results!