Mike Blumenthal

Google provided me a comprehensive list of cities and the categories that are currently under the Home Service Ads & Advanced Verification banners in those cities. This program is hard enough to keep track of with it’s many changes and the recent increase in rollout that I thought the list would help you understand more about …

The ability post video to a business listing or place listing was mentioned last week and appears to be released. H/T to Phillip Barnhart, Director of Marketing at Nehmedia in Austin, for pointing it out. For now the video can only be uploaded by Local Guides using Android Maps but the videos will be visible from …

Here are other articles that I wrote this week that might be of interest: Google As the New Home Page – One Big Tactical Guide – This one had to percolate a long time and while I was writing Google kept changing the rules. Take a look and let me know what you think. Video …

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 …