As any webmaster will tell you, getting to the top in local search is an extremely difficult task; in fact it’s something we have been actively pursuing for nearly three years now so gaining this recognition from internet pioneer Yahoo (and also newcomer Bing) competing against at least thirty other national and international directories is particularly pleasing for the team at SMARTPAGES. But what does search engine giant Google have to say? Well, we will know that when the Google Bot finally completes its crawl of all Australian websites and adjusts its Page Ranks sometime later this month. We are expecting a big jump in our rankings - it’s just that Yahoo and Bing spotted our improvements first and adjusted their rankings accordingly. And what does it mean for existing advertisers and subscribers to SMARTPAGES Wollongong Directory? As previously recorded in this column, SMARTPAGES already has over 1,000 Page 1 (or Top 10) listings on Google in Wollongong, and nearly 500 are No.1 Page 1. However, in some of the very popular categories SMARTPAGES are currently pushed back to Pages 2 and 3 (Top 10 is definitely best for click thrus) and on the odd occasion even further. A major uprank (which we anticipate) will mean that virtually all SMARTPAGES listings in Wollongong will appear near the top of the important Page 1(Top 10) on Google for LOCAL search. What’s more, for UNIVERSAL search (that is searching without using a geographic keyword) will also improve dramatically and this is particularly important for companies wishing to promote their products or services, not just locally, but by city or throughout Australia, or the whole world wide web for that matter. If you are interested in finding out about how SMARTPAGES’ latest performance based search product (SMARTPAGES PPK) can help your organisation lift its online presence and/or capture quality leads for your sales staff please contact the writer for a free consultation on Ph: 9516 2000 or email :andrewc@smartpages.com.au | 
