Understanding Google My Business & Local Search
Entries Written By Mike Blumenthal
Loci 2012 – Nyagoslav Zhekov
Nyagoslav Zhekov is a 20 something Bulgarian that owns and operates NGS Marketing. He has spoken at SMX West, is a guest author for SearchEnginePeople.com and elsewhere. When he isn’t answering questions on the Google and Your Business Forum, where he is a Top Contributor, and Quora you might find him playing (European) football with his …
Loci 2012 – Anita Campbell
Small business expert & ex-patriate of corporate America, Anita Campbell serves as CEO of Anita Campbell Associates Ltd, a woman-owned consulting firm helping companies and organizations reach the small business market. As Publisher of several online media properties and syndicated content, Anita reaches over 1,000,000 small business owners and entrepreneurs annually. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Small Business Trends. She also …
Google: Review Contests Violate Guidelines
There had long been some ambiguity & contradictions around whether the Google Review guidelines prevented a business from having a contest or raffle to encourage customers to leave reviews. No more. Google has finally stated that drawings that involve incentives are not allowed. In response to a report in the forums of a contest that had …
Google Dashboard: Most New Listings Go Pending – For How Long?
It appears that most newly created listings in the Local Business Center (LBC) Google Places for Business Dashboard the DASHBOARD are now immediately going to a pending state. Like with all Google messaging this has a certain Kafaesque quality to it. The other day Barry Schwartz reported it out as a verification delay which while that …
Loci 2012 Important Trends in Local – Ted Paff
Ted Paff is the owner of CustomerLobby.com, a solution to help local businesses to get, manage and publish customer reviews. He is more familiar than most with all of the realities of SMBs and reviews as he lives and breathes them every day of his business life and most of the rest of his day …
Is the Google+ Local Dashboard Moving Towards a Freemium Model?
That Google has finally added some semblance of human support to G+ Local raises a number of questions that are still unanswered: Is it worldwide or US only? Can agencies call in on behalf of their clients? Will it be extended beyond the verification process to other aspects and problems that occur with Google+Local like …
Google Local Now Providing Phone Support for Verification Issues
Update 10:00 pm: Google has confirmed that this is a permanent feature. Update 01/09/12 11:09 am: Google has confirmed that phone support is US- only and just English at this point if an agency is managing the listing, they should be able to get support. Google+ Local had a rough 2012. But it appears that …
Google Local Video Listing Spotted in the Wild
Plamen Barzev alerted me to the existence of a local listing display that includes a video. The display showed for the search term plumbing charleston sc on the listing for Tamsberg Plumbing. Their site is a single page site done by Localedge. Whether this is a test or a new display type is unclear. When you look at the …
Loci 2012 Important Trends in Local – David Mihm
1. Particular postions, points or places 2. Centers of activity, attention, or concentration Every year I ask people involved in the local space that I respect to provide a summary of the things that were important during the previous year. Every year their articles highlight the incredibly rich and dynamic space that is local. Their …
Service Area Business with a verified social local Google+ page? Delete It
NOTE: The article is outdated. Update 10/3/2013: The relationship between the social page and the new dashboard is different and Google’s rules about how they handle businesses with hidden addresses are different. If the social + page is associated with a new dashboard listing, deleting the social page will delete the listing. If you have …
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