Charging $299+ for Google Place?

bump - as i really want to know.
Thanks in advance.

if your business is a hair salon = expensive

if your business is a Plumber or a Locksmith = Cheap

Well, it's perceived value - to be honest, I don't have the first idea how you get listed in Google Places (I refuse to learn yet another potential income stream/shiny thing!) and nor does your average offline business owner, and so for him it is worth paying $300 NOT to have to learn how to do it. Also, in terms of the number of new leads coming in it ought to pay for itself quite quickly - though that is harder to quantify, of course...

Thanks for the input.
I think most service that charges $299 is NOT about ranking but just registering... (unfortunately)

The biggest reason people are being paid so handsomely with Google Places Listings is because there is SO much more to it than just claiming a listing.

That listing must be optimized and then there must be a ton of Citations created in order for the Big Goo to take notice.

Add to the mix a website that is linked to the GP Listing should have a ton of backlinks and you begin to see the cost/time involved.

Of course, there are plenty of people doing the bare minimum and getting paid nice sums for that work, but they're really only pulling that off in the very low competition niches.

Hope that helps.

Rob

SCAM,SCAM and again SCAM, those links will work, maybe, but Nobody can give u 100% that your URL will be on Top Google...
I wrote last week, here, my story with one of indian guy, who asked me 12.000$ per year for SEO Service and he avoid to give us 100% of results... We work a lot with many Programer, we realized that they treat us as IDIOTS, i dont know why but everybody its a BIG LIER Before u wanna start a bussines with this freelancers, think again, cause u only gonna waste your $$$.
After our ,long conversation, with about 20-30 freelancers, about SEO Service, we realized that many of those guys, are from POOR places and they want to make money on us, Their Service its a total joke... We start do do by our selves, SEO, and in one month after we lauched first site, we got very good results, second page on google and Alexa Rank from 26.***.*** changed to 4.6**.*** . with only personals backlinks and no any black methods...
We was ready to pay for 1 our SITE about 10-15.000$ a year for SEO, but we asked those guys, if they can Bring us min. 5000 Visitors per day !!! EVERY VISITOR WILL BE TRACKED and if 1 visit will be from SURF or other jokes, we not gonna work with them any more.... They refused to give us any direct responses, only Copy/Scape...

So, think twice, before u gonna hire SEO freelancers...

Oh, i forgot to tell u All this guys are promising HPR backlinks, so, look: We asked everybody for a small Portfolio, to see their job, we start to check theis SITES Here was the begest Joke, Many of them have 100 and 1000's of URL, all those URL are not Ranked in ALEXA, Google and other engines. So, what they do: if u hire them, they will put your BackLinks on First page of every URL, no more any info on that site, only Template with your BackLink, after 2-3 months thay will get another Client, thay are deleting your BackLink and put another... ANyway, doesnt make any sense, cause in 99% cases, your New Site will be Better than their URL's where they put your Signature....
One of the guy, we checked, we did a very profund investigation, and we find all Domains on his name, about 80% of that domains was like: softwareforu.com , getsoftware.net, downloadsoftware.in , ..... every of URL has same, 100%, template, in some cases just different colors, and no any INFO, only 1 backlink Alexa doesnt know about those URL, google and other engines, too....
we saw their feedbacks, and it looks like a lot of people a CRAZY, they pay tons of money but they didnt understand for what. when they see 1000's of backlinks, they are happy, and they wait 2-3 months to be indexed, but it never indexed....

SO, if u guys have enough money to support frelancers like this guys, go ahead and hire them. If u want to save your money and have a good results for your Bussines, stay away from them.....
Again, be very carefull with People from India, Pakistan,Bangladej and Romania, with people from these countrys we have a long conversation, many of them we checked and investigated, cause we invested about 20000$ in some projects, and we asked for 100% Perfect Service with NO ANY EXCUSE... Again, WE WAS SURPRISED, WHEN ONE GUY, ASKED FOR 12000$ A YEAR BUT HE AVOID TO GAVE US 100% WARRANTY...


Good Luck