Some commonplace, traditional promotion methods provide significant SEO benefits for local search marketers. However, many managers expend more time and energy focusing upon elusive technical tricks. Here’s one local SEO tactic that businesses should consider: write a book.
There’s a lot of discouraging news for the yellow pages industry these days. A combo of unhappy financial numbers mixed with reorganization and layoffs has demoralized many in the industry. Is it “game over” for yellow pages companies? Not necessarily. Not if leadership works on future strategy. A few years ago, I warned the industry […]
Google’s treatment for local businesses without public storefronts has never been good, and their suggestions for them have vacillated over time. For service professionals using P.O. box addresses, the situation is confusing, as (it appears) Google penalizes some, but not others. To understand the current situation and understand options, read on. Google Maps has had […]
This past week, marketers the world over watched the “Decor My Eyes fiasco” unfold with horrified fascination. A ruthless online marketer gleefully mistreating customers in order to achieve higher rankings was a story we didn’t want to be true, but Google’s subsequent penalization action verified it was. The fiasco underscored the importance of reviews, particularly […]
Google's recent rollout of Place Search for local business searches has resulted in a spike of interest in how to rank higher in the local-centric display of business listings. If you want to know how to rank higher in Google local search results, this article has what you need: a primer for how to rank in business searches in your city or town.
This year, Facebook launched a new semantic protocol called the Open Graph, including provisions for local businesses and places. Meanwhile, Google has expanded support for other standards, including RDFa, Microformats and Microdata. As a local SEO, the question is: focus on Google or expand your efforts to embrace Facebook’s Open Graph? The answer—unequivocally—is expand your […]
Google’s new Director of Global SMB Reseller Partnerships, Todd Rowe, announced a new reseller program and a reorganization to support it along with a partner council at the BIA/Kelsey Directional Media Strategies 2010 Conference in Dallas, Texas.
Google’s Latest Word On Local This session is of particular interest since it involves word from Google’s Todd Rowe, Director of Global SMB Reseller Partnerships, and changes to Google’s reseller deals in the past year have affected many partners among the yellow pages and directories industry. Live blogging here at 8:30 AM, CST. Keep refreshing […]
I’ll be live blogging Day 2 of the Directional Media Strategies 2010 (#DMS2010) conference here, starting at about 8:30 AM, CST, September 15. (See Day 1 and Day 3 here.) —————————————————————————————- (Sorry – started late due to large traffic jammage on the tollway) DMS ’10 Spotlight: The ‘Deal a Day’ Phenomenon Perry Evans of Closely […]
I’m live blogging portions of the Directional Media Strategies 2010 conference beginning today shortly after noon at 12:30pm, CST. So, check back here as I provide ongoing updates — I’m going to see how well I may be able to keep up with the stream, so long as my hands hold up! Keep refreshing the […]
Increased demand for local data, and with technologists who recognize a need for an authoritative local information database, suggest that we’ll soon see a landgrab for ownership of local data. A Techcrunch article in April articulated the Zeitgeist surrounding a local “database of places”, exciting a lot of talk around the subject. As many players […]
Many small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) are awakening to the marketing potential found in Facebook’s massive audience, and have begun developing their Facebook pages to promote their companies. While posting status updates is a great way to engage with your customers, there are some ways to kick them up a notch to expand your promotional potential, and […]
Google is experimenting with new local search results formats, a move that appears to be good for consumers but devastating for the SEO of online business directories as well as for some small-to-medium businesses.
Most business owners do not spend enough time considering their business category names. Categories are used by internet yellow pages directories and local search engines to classify types of businesses. When consumers are not looking up a particular company by name, they first seek out businesses by type. If your company isn’t associated with the […]
Restaurants are some of the most-searched types of businesses in local. Because of this, Google and other search engines typically look for some specific content and signals for rankings, and for eateries, the number one type of content sought on websites is the menu. Menus are so important for restaurants that they should be optimized […]
Google’s obsession with usability is well-established. They use human evaluators to test search results and many algorithmic methods to establish quality scores that can impact rankings, such as the recently introduced site speed value. There are a number of common usability elements of business websites which I believe could be leveraged for rankings in local […]
Greenpeace has issued a report warning of the ballooning energy needs of data centers feeding cloud computing. It is intended to encourage cloud providers to choose cleaner energy sources, and it does not beat up overly on Google, Amazon, Salesforce, MicroSoft, Facebook, and Yahoo!. But, it is a mixed report card, may indicate an important trend.
The term "Yellow Pages" has been a literal description of a business directory product and the name for the industry which has produced it for over a hundred years. Rapid evolution of internet media seems to be revoking the conceptual connection between printed pages which are yellow and sources for finding local businesses. So, is the "Yellow Pages" name itself becoming obsolete?
Many management advice books recommend that businesses should make better use of what’s often their biggest investment: employees. Yet, a lot of companies fail to inspire, motivate and exploit the good ideas of their employees. Local search marketing often has an employee component that’s overlooked as well. Read on for some tips on leveraging your […]
As usage of Google Maps grows, marketers are increasingly drawn to the promotional potential found there, and some innovative ways of insinuating ads into the interface have evolved. Here's a breakdown of some of the strangest tactics that have been dreamed-up for getting messages in front of Maps users.
Google's recent introduction of Place Pages within Maps came closely in sync with some key adjustments in the factors used to rank local search content. The combination of changes has resulted in Wikipedia abruptly emerging onto the scene as a highly influential factor. I'll describe what appears to've happened, and how it can impact local business rankings.
In August of this year, Google quietly began incorporating small, clickable areas within Maps, for parks, landmarks — and yes, even some businesses. These clickable "landmark icons" appear for any kinds of searches, even simple address searches. For a business, what does it take to achieve "landmark" status?
It's no secret that newspapers have been struggling with the disruptive innovations introduced by Google, and this has resulted in some level of resistance and a circling-of-the-wagons mentality by the industry. But, what if they were to go in the opposite direction, with full engagement? Search engine optimization could really help newspapers, and here's one tactic for how to do it.
This past week at SMX East, I presented a longer-tail marketing tactic for Google Maps — creation and uploading of place marks data into the customizable "My Maps" section. For companies and individuals who have some rich local data to share, or local place expertise, My Maps may be for you!
Earlier, this Spring, a number of local search marketers noticed that Google began displaying their 10-pack of local business listings based on searchers' geolocation when search queries didn't include a local search term. Matt McGee suggested that this would likely alter user behavior and reduce referral traffic to online directories. Stats show it may have happened. Read on about this "Brave New World" faced by internet yellow pages.
Local search marketing experts have long recommended that businesses improve their online presence by optimizing profiles in online yellow pages (IYPs) and local search engines. After accomplishing that, there still remains a lot of small, local “constellations” of geographically-oriented sites where companies should seek to maximize their presence as the next stage in their local SEO. […]
Geotagging, the practice of associating precise geocoordinates with webpages or other content, has been around for a while and has seen some popularity increase as sites such as Flickr and Panoramio have adopted the practice. Is it worthwhile for your locally-oriented site as well?
This spring, Idearc Media LLC filed for Chapter 11, planning to reorganize to get out from under massive debt, and in the process, leave thousands of stockholders holding worthless paper. Idearc's failure could easily be thought of as yet another in a long list of companies experiencing woes due to the economy, but is this the actual cause? I think someone should be asking if Verizon itself was responsible for spinning off the company with an unreasonable debt load in the first place.
For those of us who work in local search optimization, it's clear that Google PageRank is less and less important as a factor in result rankings. It's not difficult to find instances where businesses with lower PageRank are listed higher than competitors in the local 10-pack, and some like Matt McGee point out cases where companies with no website at all are ranking well. These cases show that in Google's local searches, PageRank has been pushed aside in favor of a ranking process that's often independent of websites: I'll call it "BizRank".
Many businesses seek to target local searchers for their products and services, and careful review of a site's analytics is one of the key weapons in a local business's competitive arsenal. Here are a few tips on what metrics to look at and how to use some of them in optimizing your site to rank better in local search results.
A couple of years ago when local search engine optimization started becoming a hot topic, I winced when I heard other search marketers recommending that local businesses include their street address in all page titles. Not only did this seem like overkill to me, but the school of “everything-and-the-kitchen-sink” in title tags can result in relevancy […]
If your company has a major brand, domainers who exploit cybersquatting have likely already targeted your business. Their practices are often looked down upon, but if their dark powers weren’t effective, they wouldn’t make money. Still, you can learn the same black magic and turn it into good and profit for your company. In this down […]
The Twitter social networking and micro-blogging service was launched only two years ago, but it’s rocketing up in usage numbers quickly, and it seems likely to turn red-hot. Many companies are rapidly cluing into the promotional value, but smaller businesses appear slow to hop on the bandwagon. Here are a few tips on leveraging Twitter to […]
Local businesses often display maps of their locations on their sites, but not a lot has been said about how to best create those pages for good usability and search engine optimization. This article will describe how to geocode addresses, use them to create dynamic maps for a local website while simultaneously optimizing those map/location […]
A common issue plaguing a great many local businesses is the fact that they provide services to many cities within a major metropolitan area, but they only have a single website and a single yellow pages listing. These businesses rank well for a local search where their office is physically located, but there’s no clear […]
It’s something of a “perfect storm” for the embattled yellow pages companies right now. Not only has the usage of print yellow pages books declined in recent years, but they’re also facing heavy competition in the online space from each other in addition to other local business directory providers and the big search engines. With […]
The economic Grinch is threatening to steal Christmas this year, but there are some things local businesses can do to avoid getting coal in their stockings this holiday season. Here are three tips for punching up your online local marketing presence, just in time for Black Friday and the Cyber Mondays to follow.
The chain-reaction of foreclosures, mortgage company failures, banking sector woes, and see-sawing stock market are making for a very scary-looking retail season here in the fourth quarter. The U.S. Department of Commerce recently said that business sales have dropped the largest amount in two years, further fueling speculation that the holiday shopping season might not […]
One of the unique seasonal activities to do this time of year is to make a trip out to a nearby farm and wander through mazes carved out of corn fields. Designers of these mazes often make them to form interesting pictures or written messages when seen from a bird’s-eye view. I’ve selected a handful […]
As more local apps are being built for wireless devices like cell phones and PDAs, one major factor that could impact continued advancement of local technology on these mobile devices is accuracy of their geolocation data. To be useful, these apps must be able to identify where the cell phone user is located in […]