I've developed a martial arts website which has front page listing for the terms;

"Muay Thai in West London"
"Muay Thai in Hammersmith"

exactly what we wanted and it has bought sufficient traffic for the last several months.

But I couldn't help but notice recently how the very first result; KO GYM has now got a map and comes up on all Muay Thai LONDON results.

It shows up for "Muay Thai in West London" despite the fact that this gym is based in E1 (EAST LONDON) - Surely they paid for this privilege?

No, you don't have to pay anything for it. You can put your business on Google maps for free. Check out: http://maps.google.com/

Just to double check..

I've attached a screenshot.

you can see that they're clearly standing out above the rest there. Are you sure this is free?

I realise it is free to add to maps but the way it is listed on the results page. In fact, it has precedence over everything when it comes to "muay thai in london"

its no need to pay, but I don't really know how to get on first page even though there are lots of users add there business in google map.

With proper anchor text in the links, it is possible to rank a site for virtually anything. They are just promoting their site more aggressively than others do.

Build more content, build backlinks to it. Build more relevant content off site with links to your site, and link to it. Build build build, link link link.

ok I'm surprised that this listing wasn't paid for and that it is pure SEO on their behalf.

I guess I will look into this very seriously.

Thanks everyone

It's NOT SEO, promotion (links) is what it will be


with the appropriate anchor text of course

If you do things correctly when you set up your google local account then you could be up their to, and even pass him. There are a few tips and tricks out there if you search good enough.

You've got to out work them, they found a way to get on top, you gotta find the way to get back. More links always helps.

No paid listing and its all free....you need to list you site and also submit in local search engines

We can leave the pananlty and report for a while, just to say, if ur KW is a high competitive one, then how much u gonna pay to be the first in Google?? Is that really worth??

BTW, one single report can pull u to the hell, u really want to do that??

Think agian!