I just received this email from a user testing Local Listing Ads in San Francisco:
Dear Local Business Center User,
Thank you for participating in the free trial program for Local Listing Ads, in Google Local Business Center. We’re writing to let you know that we’re ending the trial period for this feature and are using your constructive and positive feedback to make further improvements prior to releasing an enhanced version more widely.
We’d appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to give us feedback on your experiences with Local Listings Ads XXXXXX. The survey should take around 5 minutes.
While we make these feature enhancements, we will no longer accept new sign-ups for Local Listing Ads, and your ad(s) will stop running in mid December. We encourage you to save any account and performance information you might need for your records as soon as possible, as access to the Ads tab in Local Business Center will be also removed in mid December.
Finally, we’re happy to let you know that you have not been charged for any advertising, even if your ad ran for longer than the 30 day free trial period. As a token of appreciation, we’d also like to offer you a $100 credit towards advertising with Google AdWords, which you can use to target your local market with geographic targeting (and location extensions. To redeem this coupon:
Sign up for Google AdWords, or log in at adwords.google.com
Click on the “My Account” tab at the top in your AdWords account
Click the “Billing Preferences” sub-heading
Scroll down to the “Promotional Codes” section and enter your code exactly as follows: XXXXXX
As always, thank you for trying new features from Google. We’re looking forward to letting you know about the next evolution of advertising in the Local Business Center, as it becomes available. In the meantime, keep your eye out for new features by subscribing to the Google Local Business Center newsletter.
Sincerely,
The Google Local Business Team
Coupon Terms and Conditions
Advertisers will be charged for advertising that exceeds the promotional credit. Advertisers must pause or suspend their ads if they do not wish to receive additional charges beyond the free credit amount. Subject to ad approval, valid registration and acceptance of the Google AdWords Program standard terms and conditions. The promotional credit is non-transferable and may not be sold or bartered. Offer may be revoked at any time for any reason by Google Inc. One promotional credit per customer. Expires April 1, 2010.
Google has long looked across the web for geo signals that reinforce their understanding of your business and its location. Since October 2007 Google has been indexing both geoRSS and KML files for inclusion in the Maps index as user generated content and related that geo information to your business listing.
In the first quarter of 2008 they added support for KML sitemaps to webmaster central to actively alert Google of your geo info and any changes that might occur in your location information. If you want to understand the flow of KML information through Google’s index this flow chart provides an overview the routes it takes into and through the various Google indexes.
KML & KML sitemap use on local websites has been hindered by its complexity and lack of simple tools, web based or otherwise. Creating KML (but not the attendant sitemap) has been possible with Google Earth but it has remained pretty geeky & tedious affair.
At least until now.
Arjan Snaterse, a developer from the Netherlands, has just announced the release of his KML & Geo Sitemap generator. It is a web based tool that makes simple something that was complex and hard to understand.
While still in beta, the tool is a very easy way to create a KML file and sitemap for inclusion on your business’s site. The interface guides you through the process and allows you to add either a few locations and addresses manually or bulk upload a CSV file with multiple locations. It then geocodes the location information, generates the KML & sitemap files and makes them available for placement on your site.
Give it a try at GeoSiteMapGenerator.com and let Arjanse and the other readers of this blog know what you think.
Disclaimer: I have no personal involvement in the product other than I have helped Arjan debug and polish this tool and have been using it for several months.
Last week I created a heatmap of the main Google search results with the Local Listing Ads in place. I wanted to compare the results to a heatmap of the new UI with the Local Listing ads. Once again I used AttentionWizard which claims a 75% correlation to human interaction:
New Google UI with Local Listing Ads (Click to view larger):
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For easy comparison here is the heatmap with the current UI and the Local Listing ads:
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Things certainly move in different directions and changing what gets looked at initially and subsequently with the local listings and the first ads seeming to be the most affected.
Since the third week of November, Google has been testing a new streamlined interface for its main search page that offers a 3 pane view and a more guided experience. As Malcolm Coles pointed out over the weekend, this new view comes with a significant adjustment in the display of the Local Universal results, downshifting once again and now only showing 5 results instead of the Lucky 7- Pack.
In the new UI, the map is now wider, the local listings are shown below the Map and an obvious pin to a Map centric view is visible along the left menu. In an of itself, the change means more SEO competition for fewer spots. Whether the change will drive more people into Maps is unclear as highlighted Map pin is offset by fewer links into Maps.
Along with the new UI testing, Google is also testing their new Local Listing Ads display. The Local Listing Ads have been rolling out amongst more business categories in the San Francisco and San Diego markets and it seems only a matter of time when the viewable area above the fold on the main Google results page will include both the new UI and Local Listing Ads.
I was curious to see how the combination of new UI and LLAs would be presented on various screen sizes, what would be visible and what would be pushed below the fold.
Screen size 1024 x 768 (click to view larger):
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Screen size 1280 x 1024 (click to view larger):
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