Backlinks vs Google Maps

You hear a lot about backlinks.  You hear that you need them. Which is true.  You hear that they need to be quality backlinks.  That's also true.  But how many quality backlinks do you need?  Take a look at the image below:

It's from Market Samurai, my favorite tool for finding out which keywords are too competitive, which ones are right for me.

BLP means backlinks to the page.  BLD means backlinks to the whole site (domain). 

Do you see how many #5, the Wikipedia has of both?  Yet it's not ranking #1.  If you look farther to the right, you see that the page from Wiki that shows on page 5 is not optimized for the keyword 'Chicago home insurance, " the keyword I asked Market Samurai to gather info for me.

But, the one that shows first on the page, is not optimized at all for this keyword, has no backlinks to the page that shows up, yet it shows up first.  How come?  For a lot of keywords, Google shows local businesses that have a map profile. 

So, one thing you can do for your business, if it's the kind where Google maps applies, is to get signed up with Google maps and be #1 there.  It's a lot easier to show up high in the ranks.