A New Way to Sell OnlineGoogle Places gives you a virtual storefront where you can track traffic.

和一个every five Google searches now related to location-specific queries--translating to more than 20 billion searches per month worldwide--it's no surprise the digital services kingpin continues to channel more of its energies into solutions optimized for local businesses. Chief among them: Place Pages, a Yelp rival that provides information on local retailers, restaurants, landmarks, transit stations and related points of interest.

In April, Google changed the name of its Local Business Center to Google Places to underscore its tighter integration with Place Pages. According to Google, more than 4 million businesses have claimed their Place Pages, posting contact information, hours, photos, video clips and coupons. Business owners can use Place Pages to get customer feedback and communicate with patrons, and a personalized dashboard compiles data including how many times people have found your firm on Google and what keywords they used to sniff it out.