Breaking news!

We have recently seen evidence of our Local Optimization work having a strong positive effect on Google's organic search results when no "Local" results are shown. We can only say, with any authority, that this is true when a localization modifier (ie. name of an area in which you have a local business listing) is added to the search query.

ie. It does not work for a generic query such as "seo".  Instead, you must add the name of a town or city: "seo växjö".  And that place name must be a place in which you have a local business listing (LBL) that you've optimized on Google Local.

However, when I say we've seen a strong effect, I mean it.  For smaller towns we have seen sites jump to the #1 position from outside the top 100!  And for larger cities, we have seen sites reach the top 20 from outside the top 100.  So, I guess we'll keep optimizing those listings and see if we can improve on that.

An interesting side note:
Not only has this impacted the primary site for the business but we have seen some of the associated pages which Google displays under the "More about this place" heading in the local business listing also get into the top 10 results.

This is a very exciting development and we will be investigating this trend more.