Have you EVER gone past page 3 of Google search results? Everyone has a Decision Threshold everyday, and nobody wants so many choices that they get overwhelmed.
A decision threshold is the limited energy of the brain to make decisions in a day. It’s proven that the more decisions we make, the poorer quality and less research we do for each successive decision. Therefore, it’s possible to exhaust our ability to make reasonable decisions in a day.
You want to be in the top 5 Google local listings because people can only make so many decisions per day. They are using a search function to make the decision for them, not just tell them what businesses perform that service!
When I go to a new town, I search for restaurants, hotels, etc with Google search and read the reviews. Even TODAY in my own town, I used Google search to research windshield replacement businesses. I skipped over the first few on the list, looked at # 3 and #5 (who both had over 60 five-star reviews, went to their sites and filled out a quote form.
Before the local listings, everyone relied on SEO. And it was a nightmare for local businesses. There was very little chance that a mom&pop shop could show up in results unless the search was by name. The big national companies had too much content and too much activity on their site- they would always come out on top.
But regardless of what Amazon tries to tell us, we do need local services from real people. The ‘businesses near me’ inset in Google search is changing the game for local businesses.