Press enter to see results or esc to cancel.

Understanding Google My Business & Local Search

Local Links of Interest

When Will ‘Mobile Search’ Overtake the Internet? – Greg Sterling, LocalMobileSearch.net

While it might take some time for mobile to pass Internet search in the US or Western Europe, in context of the entire world it’s not hard to imagine mobile search volumes exceeding the desktop Internet, in the aggregate, within 5-7 years.

Google Goes Back to ‘Opt-in’ in Mobile – Greg Sterling, LocalMobileSearch.net

When Google first launched mobile AdWords it was an opt-in program: advertisers specifically had to choose to be in mobile sponsored search results. Then, in a fairly well publicized move, Google decided to make mobile an opt-out for AdWords advertisers:

The company informed me last week that it has gone back to an opt-in policy for mobile at the present time.

I also discussed with Google the degree to which the desktop and mobile might ultimate become more similar than different, in the context of “full HTML” browsers (Safari, Opera, Skyfire, Mozilla, Android). We’ll see. As I’ve tried to argue in the past, while there are some advantages in that scenario for users there are considerable disadvantages for advertisers — chiefly because online ads get lost and become very difficult to see.

The iPhone is probably the model of how smartphone browsing will evolve: native applications + full HTML browsing. But that still doesn’t solve the problem for advertisers seeking to effectively reach mobile audiences.

Move Over Universal Search, Illustrated Search Is Smarter? – Bill Slawski,SEObyTheSea

The authors of these patent filings refer to this approach as a “smart aggregation of search results by concepts.” In addition to helping searchers quickly understand different concepts related to their queries,and view different relevant content types from different sources, is also that focused advertisement can be presented.

What Google’s ZIP Code Targeting Means for Local Businesses – David Mihm, davidmihm.com

I take a look at some of the implications of this development, and expand on an earlier hypothesis about why Google introduced the 10-pack to Universal search in the first place. Yes, ZIP code targeting means more relevant results for searchers, but it’s an innovation that might not be entirely altruistic.