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 as well. I know for a fact that he loses sleep pondering the many issues that affect him and his clients in the local space.<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Here are a few articles that influenced my thinking in 2012 with respect to Google, local search and some of the emerging trends in local:<\/p>\n
Google<\/strong> Nyagoslav got me thinking with\u00a0this article<\/a>\u00a0about the impact of privacy on review solicitation in various different industries. However, not asking for reviews reduces both\u00a0quantity of reviews and the average ratings<\/a>.<\/p>\n You presented\u00a0data<\/a>\u00a0that pointed to the importance of a local business\u2019 total web presence (in\u00a0question 2<\/a>) and broad review distribution (in\u00a0question 3<\/a>). It is still a little surprising to me how poorly understood the buying cycle is for most local businesses.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think Google+ will replace Facebook as my social destination of choice and that leaves me unclear what\u00a0role Google+ fills in the ecosystem<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hope springs eternal for a local search alternative<\/strong> As a result, I am hopeful for the creation and evolution of local search alternatives.\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0is an obvious possibility with lots of\u00a0cool ways<\/a>\u00a0to build a local search business. Go Facebook go!!\u00a0Apple\u2019s Passbook<\/a>\u00a0along with their new-found interest in maps has real possibility to jumpstart their local offerings. Go Apple go!!<\/p>\n Emerging trends in offering digital products\/services to local SMBs<\/strong> Speaking of ROI on marketing spend, Groupon has issues. The\u00a0stock market knows it<\/a>\u00a0and its\u00a0employees know it<\/a>. However, there are some very smart people working at Groupon and they have a lot of cash. They are busy reshaping Groupon by buying\/building\/integrating a\u00a0POS system<\/a>,\u00a0scheduling system<\/a>,\u00a0payments system<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0yield management system<\/a>.<\/p>\n Viewed as an arc, Groupon\u2019s acquisitions point toward a different type of digital marketing business emerging to serve local businesses. Digital marketers that integrate marketing services into the operational workflow of local businesses solve a lot of problems for local businesses and clarify the ROI of marketing dollars.\u00a0Intuit\/DemandForce<\/a>,\u00a0Constant Contact<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Avvo<\/a>\u00a0are good examples of this trend. Even\u00a0Google<\/a>\u00a0is at the edge of this trend.<\/p>\n Mike, thanks for lovingly tending to the best forum for all things Google and local. Many of us would be much worse off without you. To your many readers, thanks for leaving amazing comments to Mike\u2019s posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-loci-significant-articles-local-search"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14069"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14071,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14069\/revisions\/14071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe main story line in 2012 for local was that Google+Local is a\u00a0train<\/a>\u00a0wreck<\/a>. In addition to\u00a0countless bugs<\/a>, the\u00a0complexity of managing the page<\/a>\u00a0makes most time-starved local business owners stick their head in the sand. Mike, your\u00a0review solicitation<\/a>\u00a0guide is an instant classic and joins David\u2019s\u00a0annual magnum opus<\/a>\u00a0as a must-read.<\/p>\n
\nBased on how embedded Google products are in my life,\u00a0this article<\/a>\u00a0got me to think about the risk of relying too much on any one service provider. In addition, Google\u2019s move to\u00a0prioritize profit over completeness\/quality of search results\u00a0with merchants<\/a>, makes me wonder about Google\u2019s future monetization strategies in local.<\/p>\n
\nBuilding a business serving local small\/medium businesses (SMBs) is hard. There is so\u00a0much truth in here<\/a>, it hurts. However,\u00a0businesses are being built<\/a>\u00a0in local. \u00a0But stories like\u00a0this<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0this<\/a>\u00a0lead me to wonder if local SMBs understand the ROI of their marketing spend.<\/p>\n