Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Google Mobile Search Results for Hotels, Restaurant and Other Entertainment Locations Updated
Google announced yesterday that mobile searchers would now be able to filter restaurant results more effectively. It appears that the mobile display for restaurants and hotels has also been updated and hotels also offer a filtering option. These new results are also showing for museums, music venues and amusement parks. The list of location types …
Google Review Snippets – Hall of Shame Favorites
Front page, full sentence Google review snippets are in full swing and I can’t take my eyes off of them. I have spent more time than I should looking for front page examples of smb armageddon. And I am finding them even on more highly rated businesses. And they can certainly add “color”. Its still not …
Google Review Snippets – More Impactful by Half
With the rollout of review sentiment snippets to the Knowledge Panel in Local search, Google has again elevated reviews another notch in their visibility and impact. These “review synopses” are not just more visible but in being just one sentence and clearly highlighted they are more capable of having greater affect on the reader. In the previous incarnation of sentiment snippets (still extant on …
Good News, Bad News in the Apple Mapping & Business Listing World
A client, having re-located to a new sub division, contracted with me early last spring to get their new street “on the map” and to clean their NAP. Google, with the help of Dan Austin (a partner on the project) picked up the new streets in about 2 weeks and went live to Maps immediately …
Using Google Reviews On Your Website
The question often comes up whether a business can and should use their Google & Yelp reviews on their website. Leaving aside the value to the user experience for a minute, I was curious about the legal issues involved. A small business would be foolish to use those reviews if the costs of litigation, however …
Are Younger Consumers More Tolerant of Bad Reviews? Or Do They Just Understand Them Better?
If your business has an aggregate star rating of 3 or less, you need to be concerned that shoppers might reject you out of hand. If, on the other hand you have a star rating greater than 4 most shoppers will accept you on face value. However we are seeing dramatically different standards within different …
Google Now Displaying Full Review Snippets in the Knowledge Panel
Off and on for the past few months Google has been showing reviews in the Knowledge panel for local searches. James Gibbons pointed out today that he was now seeing them more regularly. I would have to agree. This may be a more extensive test or it may be the new normal but many (not all) …
Local U Advanced – Seattle – June 10th
Local U Advanced is returning to Seattle on June 10th with an all new curriculum for 2014. When asked what attendees liked best about our just completed Local U Advanced in Philadelphia here is what a few of them said: How intimate the group is and the ability to talk to the presenters before, during and after presentations. All …
Do Positive Reviews Motivate Consumers?
It seems intuitive that a negative review corpus would severely limit a business’s online opportunities. And likewise that a positive review corpus would expand them. But these recent surveys indicate that a negative collection of reviews is much more likely to harm a business than positive reviews are going to help them. In an effort to …
Can Facebook Crack the SMB Nut? Can Google?
Greg did an interesting article on Facebook’s move into the SMB market. Whether their decision to forgo resellers is the correct one, time will tell. But has Greg points out, the real question is whether they can deliver compelling value to SMBs, in an easy to use package that drives widespread adoption. Many have dreamed …
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