Almost everyone with an interest in Local Search is trying to get a message through to the large minds at Google, in a variety of ways. The message concerns the real-life effects of inaccurate data in Google's One Box, 10-pack and Maps on the public. While a major percentage of Internet users have grown to trust the Google brand and will take Google's local data at face value, few will understand that Google views its own local applications as a wiki, community project. Let me explain why this is seriously problematic....
Discover how clearly written user reviews give you the power to shape your local economy. This article provides specific instructions for styling your reviews powerfully and describes the real-life incentives for doing so....
Listen up and you'll hear the cries and groans of citizens everywhere as they interact with Google's Local entity and come away bruised and confused. What happens when you release a demi-god product into civilization, with the power to change common people's daily lives in terms of their earnings, their activities and the use of their time, and then you fail to back up that super power with adequate support? The past few weeks on the Local scene give a bird's-eye-view answer to that question....
The days of flipping through a big fat yellow book to find a local business are quickly coming to a close. After all, why settle for a simple phone number when an online search can also net you menus, pricing, hours and consumer reviews? In this workshop, Matt walked attendees through the most popular local search engines and will show you the best ways to leverage them to promote your business online....
Lots of big news coming from Yodle this past week including a report of a 700% year over year increase in revenue and the addition of some experienced veterans Yodle's leadership. I got a chance to catch up with Yodle CEO, Court Cunningham to get his insight on some of the latest news....
This past week I had the chance to catch up with Peter Hutto, Vice President, Business Development and Sales at Local.com to get some insight on his session regarding Local 2.0 at Search Engine Strategies in San Jose....
If David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors left you longing for more local fare, Mike Blumenthal takes the cake by Cracking Google's Local Algo. Visit Mike's site for the presentation he just gave at SMX Local, and stay tuned there for a more in-depth report on our findings....
As a Local Search practitioner, I'm a big fan of Google Maps and the brilliant technology behind it. I interact with Maps daily and am always excited when they roll out some new tool or application that makes their index of information about local businesses more thorough or useful. But seeing Google Maps' newest offering, Street View, didn't make me feel excited. It made me feel...ticked....
David Mihm is one of the top experts in the ever-growing specialty of Local Search Optimization and he focuses his consultancy on helping small business clients generate online revenue in their respective marketplaces. His Mihmorandum blog is a "mandatory add" to the feedreader of anybody remotely interested in the Local SEO niche....
It was just over a year ago when I chatted with Hanan Lifshitz of Palore for the first time. We've spoken a number of times since then, and he and the Palore team have done some great things in providing local business data. I'm very happy that Hanan has agreed to do an online interview.
Local search walks away with two categories this week with continued praise for David Mihm's "Local Search Ranking Factors" article, and Local.com increases communication on its site by adding user reviews and ratings. USA Today featured Google's Matt Cutts as he shares five tips on how to help your website succeed in the search engines. And, the SEMPO survey says. . . the SEM industry exceeded its projected $11.5 billion spending with and actual spending of $12.2 billion in 2007!...
David Mihm steals top honors this week with his article "Local Search Rankings Factors." Sage refers to the post as the definitive local search document, thus far. David picks the brains of the top 20 local search experts to help determine what the most important factors are for local search. He created a scale of negative five to positive five that he uses to rank topics on how important they are to impacting your rankings. With a total of 47 different criteria listed, David not only tells you how the experts ranked them, but he also tells you how much...
Sometimes it's the really simple advice that can have the most impact on how you do business. That's the basis of Tim's advice over at Convert Offline this week. Tim harkens back to his Yellow Pages days and offers up some great suggestions on building a better local search presence. Now some people might find it odd to learn SEO lessons from something as old school as the Yellow Pages, but Tim offers up some good advice on improving your site.
Roughly a year ago, local search engine optimization was all the rage - the new frontier in search engine marketing. For a while, it seemed that everyone was interested in the local search angle - even multi-national companies. However, for many companies selling products or services to the entire United States, or even globally, it seemed like a non-starter.
Today we begin the first installment of a weekly site clinic column, where small businesses are invited to submit their websites for review. Can't beat a little free advice, right? I'll be looking at the design, copy, usability, SEO, marketing, and any technical issues that may prevent websites from drawing loyal, active visitors and meeting goals. Each week, I'll give the top five issues the website owner/manager can address to significantly improve performance. ...
The days of flipping through a big fat yellow book to find a local business are quickly coming to a close. After all, why settle for a simple phone number when an online search can also net you menus, pricing, hours and consumer reviews? In this workshop, Matt McGee, SEO Manager at Marchex will walk attendees through the most popular local search engines and will show you the best ways to leverage them to promote your business online....
No doubt some of you looked at your calendars last week and realized you'd missed the $850 early bird price for our upcoming Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference in Houston. Don't sweat it, we've got you covered. We've spent the last six months building the perfect conference for you. We know how busy you are. Do you think we'd let you miss out on this great show just because you forget to set an alert on your calendar?
Scott Buresh receives top honors this week with his article "Sam's Club Wants to Be Your Search Engine Optimization Company-Should You Let It?". He explains that Sam's Club is partnering with a company called Innuity to provide small businesses with access to a dashboard that submits their sites to local search engines, all for only $25! Scott's concern is that customers will feel they are getting the whole SEO package when really it's just a small piece of it, but he does acknowledge the possibility of the affiliation increasing validity for the SEO world....
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