Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Garnering Reviews – A Mom & (no) Pop Shop finally Hops on Reviews
Barbara Oliver and Co. Jewelry, an owner operated jewelry store with one part time employee in Buffalo, NY was referred to me by my sister about a year ago for help with marketing of her “new” website. Like many small businesses she has trouble integrating new procedures whether from inertia, fear or lack of time. …
Asking for Reviews – UMoveFree Finds the Groove
Nick Barber is President and CEO of UMoveFree, the largest apartment locating service in Texas. UMoveFree is a free service that helps renters in Texas find a new apartment each month. Nick called with some questions about Google Maps and we had a great conversation about his company’s review strategy. Nick agreed to share his …
Principles for a Review Plan: Considerations in encouraging customer reviews
Asking for feedback & testimonials from customers has been a long term practice in the business world. The practice has morphed to some degree by new exposure that on-line review platforms have provided to this information. The rewards are much greater and the affect of running afoul of the community standards can be severe. Yelp …
Are the SEO Oneboxes Returning to the Google SERPS? Nah…..except in Duluth
Marty of Aimclear sent this screen shot of what, at first glance, appeared to be a spammy onebox for the Google search SEO Duluth and perhaps foreshadowed the return of SEO to the 7 Pack after their banishment: Neither is the case. Apparently there is a Physicians Assistant in Duluth by the name of Kengo …
Google Maps: Citation Conflation or Where have my Citations Gone?
Mathew Hunt of Small Business Online Coach, recently pointed out what appears to be a new bug in Google’s clustering algo that causes one business’s citations to show up on another business’s Places Page. It appears that Google Maps, when scraping multiple citations for different businesses that appear on a single unstructured web page, not …
Google Jazz Interface and the 7 Pack Are Evolving – How will it affect organic display?
The new Google Jazz interface has received another facelift (thanks Barry) and continues to evolve. Initially the new interface, which was rolled out on a very limited basis in November, was showing only a 5- Pack of local listings. Earlier this month it was modified once again to show the 7 Pack. The new tweak …
A Video Tour of the Google LBC Category Preview Tool
Local Search Consultant Don Campbell of Expand2Web.com has compiled this very nice tutorial on why and how my Google LBC category tool can assist in your Google Maps Local Listing efforts. THANKS!
Smartphone Market Share – December 2009
Compete.com’s December US Mobile Subscriber Market Share report has been released. Of particular interest to me is the shifting sands of the Smartphone Platform Market Share. The numbers reflect the December release of the Droid by Verizon (and their heavy advertising) but not the release of the Nexus to T-Mobile which occurred in January. I …
Google Map’s Carter Maslan Answers Questions on the New Nearby Places You Might Like
Google Maps recently introduced a new feature on the Places Pages called Nearby Places You Might Like. It was rolled out early last Friday and while it generally adds value to the Places Page, there were a number criticisms of the results particularly as it relates to SMBs. The feature was announced on the Lat …
Searchable Google LBC Category Preview Tool Beta Test
We have put on line a simple, searchable interface to the Google Local Business Center (LBC) categories and synonym lists. The idea is to to assist in early planning and judicious picking of the most appropriate categories for your LBC listing. At this point, the categories included are for the US LBC only. Late last …
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