Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Developing a Near Me Strategy for Local; Not?
Yesterday, David Mihm highlighted an article in his Tidings Newsletter about a dentist that had legally changed his last name from Draper to Better so that he could change his practice name to Better Dental and rank better. Matt Marko pointed out the “shortsightedness in his leaving the obvious opening for Dr. Best”.
That elicited a tweet from Matt Lacuesta (H/T to Tony Gricar) highlighting a signage company located in Denver that had changed its name AND its signage to Custom Signs Near Me:
I guess that this customer sign shop has read about the ever increasing number of near me searches and why developing a ‘Near Me’ strategy has become critical. Strategy, smategy. Why think when you can act?
Next up: Starbucks will justifiably rename: Coffee Shop Near Me.
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Comments
3 Comments
I’m glad someone registered SEONearMe.com, but sad that they just redirected it.
Just wait for different verbiage to replace “near me” as the go-to. I start typing “coffee near…” into the Maps search bar on my mobile device and Google’s suggestion is “coffee nearby.”
A couple of things:
1. Near Me pages work. We have smb’s with landing page traffic from Pages that have Near Me titles and other attributes. If they rank high they work to attract traffic.
2. We answer phones in our smb’s. At times when new leads call in the conversation they will say they searched on “service near me”.
3. Through Adwords We monitor impressions (volume of searches) on near me phrases. They have exploded with mobile. From Zero searches to a very substantial volume. We see it. Its no joke.
4. Changing a business name to take advantage of the quirks and inconsistencies in Google’s algo’s is NOT a new strategy. As you well know its been going on as long as there has been local google.
5. Google can either rigorously enforce rules about names OR NOT. I would venture to say that over the entire period of Google Maps they primarily HAVE NOT enforced rules.
So the spamming continues.
A business can change its name. It can do so legally. What are you going to do?
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