Mike Blumenthal

Should you add city to your business name at Google? This question recently came in from John Simonson from Webstream Dynamics at the Local U forum (paywall): A (small) multi-location retailer who just starting using Yext was told by a Yext rep to append to their business name their city so to distinguish between their …

Google Local has been on a tear lately with tests being reported on a regular, almost daily basis. Two that really caught my eye were local restaurant results found by Sergey Alakov and the other by Kevin Indig (h/t Megan Hannay). These many tests are a testament to Google’s continual effort to gain audience and more importantly, …

Here are some places that wrote/spoke/recorded last week on the inter webs: Google and Local Search Success – a great conversation with Joy Hawkins about Google Local, tips for success, editing and rank as well as a discussion about her new Expert’s Guide to Local SEO, Also available as a podcast. Video: Last Week in Local …

Brian Barwig of Integrated Digital Marketing has pointed out that Google has been rolling out a number of updates to the Goggle My Business Dashboard. The latest is one that provides an improved, easily accessible menu to the left had side of a the listing view. The new menu surfaces both listing and account specific …

Here are some other articles and podcasts from last week that appeared elsewhere: Constructing the Enterprise Priority List for Local Search – Streetlight Magazine – In our biweekly chat with David Mihm and I discuss a local tactics for enterprises. “I think some local managers in corporations are getting pushback as to why their local traffic is falling, …

The scuttlebutt in the world of Local SEO has long been that Google Insights was inaccurate and unhelpful as a guide to consumer behaviors. But is the newish Insights a better guide? How accurate is it and how can we test it? Prior to the rollout of the Google MyBusiness dashboard in June of 2014, the …

Update 5/8: And the answer is 100! I continued testing and determined that if attempting to use 101 characters, the edit gets rejected with a Please enter fewer characters message: My exploration inside the Google Spam Hall of Shame made me curious exactly how long a business name could be. While I have yet to find the …

This week’s second Google Spam Hall of Shame award goes to not one deserving business but to a group, who have worked hard and persistently to achieve this honor (drum roll please….)- the personal injury lawyers of the City of Orlando. This achievement, of having every listing(ok two out of three1) in the 3 Pack and the …

This week’s Google Spam Hall of Shame nominee achieved a double double score in the race to be nominated and secure this week’s nod. The offender has 13 words (96 characters)1 in his business title and somewhere north of 20 fake reviews. I discovered the listing via my on-going review spam research and I loved his …

Sergey Alakov, Toronto SEO, shared a new mobile Knowledge Panel test that shows the use of tabs to hold the reviews and separate them from basic business information. Obviously Google does a ton (and a half) of these tests, most of which never go further. But Sergey pointed out several other interesting tests last week. This one, …