Monday, I am presented the keynote, Google is From Mars and You are From Venus – Or how I learned to stop worrying and love Google at the Mid-Atlantic Innkeepers Conference in Williamsburg.  It was an incredibly well run and fun conference. Meeting with both aspiring and successful bed and breakfast owners was educational and inspirational. Although I think I will keep my day job.

For those that were in the presentation these links will provide background information and details for a pathway to dig deeper into the world of managing your listing in Google Places and ethically approaching the review process. For those of you that were not in attendance, the links provide a good overview of critical base line ideas and tactics that every local campaign should embrace.

Slide 1 – Small Business Alert: Google is from Mars and You are from Venus

Slide 4 – How Google Got its name

Slide 5/6 – Jan 2012 Search Engine Market Share / Local Search %

Slide 17 – How to maximize your branded presence in Google search

Slide 18 – Rich Snippets in Local Results

Slide 19 – Local Search Eye Tracking Study

Slide 20/21 – The Importance of Page One Visibility 

Slide 26 – A Closer Look at the Local Search Data Providers

Slides 27 – How the Google Places Cluster Works

Slide 41 – NAP Consistency

Slide 42- Google Places Policies: Quality guidelines

Slide 44- Choosing the Right Category – A Tool

Slide 44 – Writing a Great Business Description

Slide 45 – Checking for Problems – NAP Audit

Slide 46 – Creating a GeoSitemap – A tool

Slide 48 – Providing a Baseline Presence

Slide 53 Local Search Ranking Factors – the many variables

Slide 53 A brief list of 10 Ranking Factors – somewhat old but still valid and a quick read

Slide 54 Thinking about your Business Name in the Internet Era

Slide 55 – User Generated Content – Geo Tagged Photos

Slide 56- The Importance of Citations

Slide 60 – 20 Citation Sources in the US

Slide 61 – Finding Citations

Reviews – Jumping Into the Void

Slide 72 – Trust in consumer reviews – Nielson

Slide 72- How consumer Reviews Build Trust in Your Brand – Harvard Business Review

Slide 75-77 – A case study – Garnering Reviews – A Mom & (no) Pop Shop finally Hops on Reviews

Slide 81- 7 Tips on Avoiding Bad Reviews

Slide 86- Where to Gather Reviews

Slide 87 – Responding to Negative Reviews – Your Prospects are the Real Audience

Slide 88 – Principles for a Review Plan: Considerations in encouraging customer reviews

Slide 89 –Reviews: Lipstick on a Pig Leads to User Backlash

Slide 91 – Google Places: Onsite “Review Stations” AOK with Google

Slide 92 – Asking for Reviews – UMoveFree Finds the Groove

Slide 94-95 – Removing Friction from the Review Process – Crafting a URL

Slide 98- A Listing management & Review montior tool

Slide 100- Allocating Online Marketing Resources & Building Web Equity