Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Why ATT, Verizon & Disco Should be Looking over their Shoulder -> iMessage
At last week’s iOS5 introduction the big news across the internet was Apple’s deep OS integration of Twitter. Truth be told, it is an important development, one which makes sense for both Apple and more importantly for Twitter. The move was a typical Apple finesse, threading the wildly competitive social arena needle in a way …
Google Places Blended Results – Photos MIA
UPDATE 4:00 pm: I sent the following inquiry off to Carer Maslan this morning: “I see that today ALL photos and graphics are missing from local blended results on the main search results page. This search showed photos Sunday/Monday but not today. Is this a new normal?” His answer: Yes, but as you know, the “normal” is …
Google Calendar Appointment Slots – Infrastructure for Places Scheduling?
Places and similar products have slowly been moving towards becoming a transaction environment. Last November Google rolled out, on a limited basis, a hotel booking feature. In December, Bing introduced a restaurant reservation system on their Place page equivalent. This spring when Google added rich snippet events to the Places page, they integrated the ability to …
Google Hiring Sales Staff in Seattle for Large Scale SMB Acquisition
Thanks to Chris Reilly of Unleashed Online Marketing for this heads up. Google has posted job openings for Sales Manager and Sales Reps for the Seattle area apparently to focus on “Google’s new Commerce related businesses, such as Google Offers, through large-scale SMB acquisition programs“. From the Sales Manager listing: The area: Business Operations and Strategy, …
Google Offers Beta – Status Update
Google Offer’s Beta in Portland started on June 1 and there have been 5 deals in total to this point. Here is a summary of the deals to date: Date Co./URL Deal % off Purchase Window Avail. Sold 6/1 Floyd’s Coffee $3 for $10 work of food 70% 15 hrs 2000 1709 6/2 Uptown Billiards …
Updated Places Quality Guidelines – Ineligible Business Models
As a general rule, Google Places has been providing major updates to the quality guidelines in late fall with the most recent last November. Minor updates occur as needed but most frequently occur in the spring. This update (highlighted below in yellow) occurred on June 2 and has import for a range of businesses: Ineligible …
Highlights from the Google Offer Business Help Files
The help files for Google Offers have also been expanded to now include actual details about the program. I have abstracted some of the highlights: Participation Requirements To participate in Google Offers, you … should be financially stable, and must have positive customer reviews. Concerns about meeting demand Google will pay you 80% of your share …
First Google Offer Hits in Portland: 70% off at Floyd’s Coffee Shop
The first Google Offer from Portland just hit my inbox. Here are the rules for the offer of the day: Rules that apply to all Google Offers of the Day In addition to the specific terms listed for each offer, these are the rules that apply to all Google Offers, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Cannot …
Place Pages Sporting New Navigation Features
Yam Regev has pointed out several new navigation capabilities on a business’s Place page that allows users to more easily move through a list of Places returned from a Google Maps search result. The feature is only visible when a Place Page has been accessed via the list view resulting from a Map search and …
Google Places Mobile: Is a Broad Rollout of Check-In Offers Imminent?
In early March, Google rolled out Check In offers as a feature for Latitude in Austin. In April the feature was additionally made available to national retailers like Radio Shack and Quiznos. The feature was not made generally accessible to most retailers. At the time I inquired of Google when it would be available more …
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