If you search for any local keyword, such as New York City hotels or Pittsburgh car wash you'll notice that Google automatically displays a "10-pack" of local search results. If you are looking to target keywords with low competition and high CPC, there are tons of local keywords that match this criteria. However, my question is, is it possible to outrank Google's "local business results" listings , or does Google display it automatically in the number one position?
I know what you are talking about and I would have to say no...it's their playground and they are calling the shots. It might be an automatic thing like you asked, and at BEST it is just extremely highly authoritative. To outrank this 10 pack might be an endeavor that might not be worth the time/effort. Great question, but imo become the first result under these smaller listings and you will still get great results.
These local listings are not one of the rankings as such. Say you type in New York Hotels, There are still text sites listed and in addition to these ten sites listed in the serps for New York Hotels is a ten pack of local listings at the top of the page and News results at the bottom of the page. A lot of people are complaining about local results, shopping results and news results saying that they get in the way of their natural listings but they are probably here to stay. So the trick is to get your site listed within the local listings. Have a look online their are quite a few tutorials on how to do this. The only other alternative is to get listed in the PPC ads at the top of the page.
The local listings will most likely always appear at the top if you include a place name, for example if i search "Restaurants Leeds" the results are at the top, however if I search for just "Restuarants" they appear further down. I guess it depends on the keywords you are searching for.
At a recent marketing seminar Google spoke about this. They said the Google Map listing results go by 3 factors: 1) Proximity to what they consider the center of the city or town 2) Amount of reviews 3) Having same address in text somewhere on the homepage A friend of mine attended this conference, I thing it was the SMX in California. Although they spoke about it I have yet to see anyone report it.
Yes you can rank above the local results. Here's an example: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=rocklin+preschool&aq=&oq=&aqi=g1&fp=2Inaafc1UxE
Yes it is possble to have your organic listing be so authoritative (in Google's eyes) to have YOUR organic serp ranked ABOVE the Google Places Listings. It's not easy, you've got to do some fancy local SEO , but it IS possible