why is my business not at the top of search (By town) in Google?

[Jake]

There are courses you can buy that teach techniques to get better ranking is Google Places (or whatever they are now calling it) those A-G labeled stick pins mark local listings, you can claim the local listing page for your business and refine it with sales copy, photos, etc as well as adding more categories the company matches. They verify the ownership with a postcard. It seems that the search ranking of your regular business web site effects the ranking of the places page, at one time user reviews and citations on the many free business directory sites were big factors in local ranking.

If not yet in charge of your places page, try:
google.com/placesforbusiness