The local search landscape is a constantly evolving beast, regularly changing at the whim of Google My Business and, more and more these days, reliant on consumer reviews. As such, the folks working in this niche of the wider SEO industry have had to be quick on their feet to adapt to changes. It’s no […]
Local search industry optimistic about 2018 — but less likely to hire Read More »
Most marketing professionals don’t give much thought to the regulatory climate. In the US, unlike Europe, privacy laws are largely industry-specific and targeted toward healthcare and financial services. Thus, marketers have largely been able to rely on lawyers to provide privacy disclosures and then go on to business as usual. Yet there are a number
How much will privacy regulation disrupt the local search market in 2018? 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 »
Local SEO practitioners have an increasingly important role to play in the digital marketing mix as searches with local intent continue to grow at a fast pace — particularly on mobile devices. Google has responded to this shift in consumer behavior accordingly, releasing several updates in 2017 that have allowed business owners to enhance their
Search Engine Land columnist Kevin Lee recently wrote a post about the prevalence of fake reviews, how they are damaging consumer trust and why it’s a bad move with permanent repercussions to attempt to use them yourself. The reason for this growing problem is that online reviews have tremendous influence over the purchasing decisions of
How independent reviews influence Google’s trust in your brand Read More »
Last month, Yelp doubled down on its war on review solicitation. Yelp has long given mixed signals about whether you can ask customers for reviews on their platform, but they seem to now be unifying their message against review solicitation. In November, they began sending messages like this to businesses and agencies: Disclosure: We (Go
3 inconsistencies in Yelp’s review solicitation crackdown 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
Last year, I wrote a piece addressed to SEO companies showing how much they were spamming Google Maps and giving the industry a bad reputation. If I worked at Google, this type of stuff would make me hate SEO companies and have no desire to help them. Lately, I’ve been seeing this same level of spam
Law firms spamming Google My Business: Don’t trust them! Read More »
Google has started showing more information about local businesses in some local knowledge panel results. It is implementing this by showing additional tabs of information above the local panel for (a) locations (b) about, and sometimes (c) Google Posts. Here is a screen shot showing a search for [kfc] which brings up locations for nearby
Google showing knowledge graph data in local panels Read More »
