Mike Blumenthal

The top contributors met with Google and we were educated as to the changes that are taking place in both the Advanced Verification programs and the Home Service Ads program. Both are evolving from the model rolled out in San Diego which required all local listings to be advanced verified. One big change is that …

Google Local’s Q & A feature is now rolling out to mobile browsers on the iPhone and Android. On the iPhone the feature is visible on both Safari and Chrome. Sergey Alekov, an SEO specialist in Toronto, was first to notice the products increased visibility. When Questions & Answers was released for local Knowledge Panels earlier …

As Google’s Home Service Ads rolls out to more verticals and more markets1, more and more service area businesses are going to feel the impact. While some of the details are changing it appears that Google is charging forward with Home Service Ads2. The impacts go beyond those covered by in this great article: How Google …

For those of you that just can’t enough of me, here are other posts that I have helped create or worked on or appeared in. Channel7 Investigators uncover fake online reviews of Detroit businesses – I am the “expert” (or one of them) that helped with research and understanding for Channel 7 Detroit to file …

When Google Questions & Answers came out last week, I reached out to Barbara Oliver Jewelry (who doesn’t have any street level presence in Williamsville, NY and is hidden on the third floor of an office building) and advised her on how to deal with the new product. She agreed that she needed to get …

Walter Schärer, Director of Marketing & Business Development at BlueGlass Interactive in Zurich alerted me to a newly created plug-in that they have recently developed: Jobs for WordPress. The plug-in easily formats (using Schema markup) your job listings to be compatible and readable by the new Google for Jobs search engine. Every business small and …

On Friday, Justin Mosebach of Improve and Grow , Lancaster PA  pointed out some new, very annoying behavior happening within Google Maps. When the business listing shows a business URL in Chrome, it now opens a new window “without any tab bar, bookmark bar, etc”. It does not happen in Mac Safari but according to …

The new Google Places Questions & Answers offers a lot of potential for both helping and hurting a business. Here are some thoughts on how your business should approach this new and untried feature in the local Knowledge Panel. 1- Get out in front of them. Crowd sourcing can be intimidating to the typical business …

Update: See my post 11 Tips to Optimize the New Google Questions & Answers to help plan your approach. Google has announced and started to roll out Questions & Answers, a crowd sourced and business sourced Q & A product for local Knowledge Panels places listings. Tim Capper has a great summary as well that is …

With help of Jason Brown, a fake review critic, I was invited to speak with WXYZ reporters while in Detroit last month on the issue of fake reviews and their impact.