Google is testing a new local service called Bulletin. The company describes it as a “lightweight app for telling a story by capturing photos, video clips and text right from your phone, published straight to the web.” It’s currently only available in Nashville, Tennessee, and Oakland, California. Google envisions this as a way to contribute […]
Hyperlocal news, Nextdoor competitor or both? Read More »
Last Friday, Google launched a feature to upload videos to Google My Business local listings. Google said that videos would be processed and live within 24 hours of being uploaded. That, however, is not the case; there is a bug that is preventing the videos from showing up on the local listings in Google Maps
Google My Business videos not showing up on your local listing? It’s a Google bug Read More »
Allyson Wright from the Google My Business team announced today that the video upload feature we saw being tested is now available for business owners in the Google My Business dashboard. Business owners can “view videos added by customers and upload videos about their business for customers to view,” she said. The video maximum length
Google My Business video uploads now available to business owners Read More »
Ahead of the 2017 holiday season, I wrote a column detailing how much more important locally focused ads became during the 2016 holiday shopping season, namely Local Inventory Ads and ads on Google Maps. Analyzing last year’s data, I found that searchers became increasingly likely to search for both brand and non-brand keywords within Google Maps
Holiday shoppers increasingly turned to Google Maps in the countdown to Christmas Day Read More »
Google seems to be testing the ability of business owners to upload videos to their local listings within the Google My Business dashboard. Colan Nielsen posted screen shots of the feature within the dashboard. This is not to be confused with the Local Guides, volunteers who help Google keep map data up to date and
Google My Business dashboard showing video upload section for some business owners Read More »
According to a report appearing in Reuters, Google’s parent Alphabet is considering a sale of reviews publication Zagat. The company was purchased in September, 2011 for a reported $151 million in the wake of a failed deal to acquire Yelp. At the time Google needed local reviews content to better compete in local search with
Google exploring sale of Zagat reviews Read More »
I hear complaints from business owners and marketers all the time that the Google My Business guidelines are often ambiguous, and I tend to agree. It can be easy to read a guideline and interpret it incorrectly. I have learned that the key to understanding the guidelines is through time and experience. Seeing what Google
Negative reviews from ex-employees are finally against Google’s guidelines Read More »
Google announced it has added features to help you plan your trips, flights and hotel stays for your vacations or business trips. Many of the features are around how you can save money or track prices for a travel destination. Google has been testing many of these features over the past month, so they may
Google adds price tracking features to flight search, hotel search and Google Trips Read More »
Local SEO is competitive and fierce. With more and more local businesses vying for the Google local three-pack — and ads and online directories occupying a large percentage of the remaining SERP real estate — your local SEO strategy has to be aggressive. So, what can you do to outrank your local competitors down the
5 local search tactics your competitors probably aren’t using Read More »
Is it just me, or does it seem time flies faster in the local search industry? Another year has gone by, with many changes and developments to boot. Here’s a list of my top 10 insights from 2017: 1. Customer data is the new competitive edge SMBs often feel at a competitive disadvantage compared to
Top 10 local search insights of 2017 Read More »
