Local SEOs mixed, some peeved at idea of paying for Google My Business services
They recognized the logic – but many had strong criticisms.
Topic: Small and medium enterprises
Paid social, even print tops SEM as marketing priorities for SMBs, survey finds
Paid-search ranked near the bottom of the list for 2019.
SMBs bullish on virtual assistants, think Alexa has biggest marketing potential
Don't focus on the specific numbers, the interesting thing is the sentiment.
Google releases improved GMB app: Now much more than a local listings management tool
GMB is becoming a customer relationship management and "engagement" platform.
Google asks SMBs if they’ll accept calls from Google Assistant
Google is testing business owner interest in receiving calls from an AI robot.
SMB marketing survey finds only 3% use outside agency or vendor
Messaging and SEO seen as most effective digital tactics, Snapchat easiest to execute
Waze launches ‘Local’ ads primarily aimed at SMBs and franchises
Waze has 100 million active users who spend an average of 11 hours per month in the app.
Yelp tests offline attribution using guest WiFi and email matching
The company said that every $1 spent on Yelp ads resulted in a $110 offline return, based on aggregate transaction data.
GoDaddy site builder now integrated with Google My Business
Much of the content creation and verification process is automated.
Google’s new #SmallThanks Hub automatically creates digital & printed marketing assets for SMBs
Using content pulled from Google reviews, businesses with verified Google listings can create posters, social media posts, window clings, stickers and more.
Dex Media acquires YP Holdings to expand its SMB marketing automation platform
New company, to be called DexYP, says it will keep YP.com local search directory alive.
SearchCap: SEO success factors, Google News spam, Bing Ads device bidding
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors: 2017 edition now released Jun 12, 2017 by Danny SullivanMobile, direct answers & site speed factors gain greater weight. Gboard for Android gets new […]
Do SMB websites matter anymore? YP doubles down on ‘yes’ with new ‘pro’ SEO product
Company says program resulted in a page one ranking on Google for 70 percent of keywords within a few months.
The Yext IPO and the triumph of local SEO
The global market for local listings management may be worth up to $50 billion.
Why Google shutting down Map Maker should terrify SMBs
Contributor Joy Hawkins warns about the likely unintended consequences of Google's impending shutdown of Map Maker, calling for the search giant to create more transparency.
Google Local Business Cards or Posts about to roll out to ‘thousands’ of SMBs
Search feature will soon be broadly accessible to local businesses and their agencies.
Survey: Local search marketing top channel for SMBs, but many not tracking ROI
The paradoxical findings suggest many SMBs are making assumptions about marketing effectiveness without actually measuring.
SearchCap: Travel & retail report, first page bids & more
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: AdGooroo releases travel and retail keyword results after Google’s right rail ad changeMar 31, 2016 by Ginny Marvin Overall, the number of advertisers competing is down and CPCs are up somewhat, […]
Yahoo Follows Google In Building Out Local Search Marketing Reseller Program
As Yahoo has turned Gemini into a more expansive search marketing platform, it has also expanded the ways the platform is being sold. The company is expanding and adding resellers to its Preferred Partner Program. Its latest partner is small business marketing platform ReachLocal. Existing Preferred Partners include Marin, Acquisio and Kenshoo, among others. For […]
Local Search Provider YP Offers All-Inclusive PPC Search Product For SMBs
Local search provider YP has launched a one-stop-shop local PPC solution targeting small and medium businesses. It combines YP’s own PPC-search inventory with paid-search ads on Google, Yahoo and Bing. The company has been a Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner for years, as well as a Yahoo Bing Network Strategic Ambassador. Now it’s adding its own PPC search inventory to […]
Groupon Pages Part Of Company Evolution Into Local Search Site
Depending on your viewpoint, Groupon’s new Pages offering is either a helpful new tool for local business owners or a bid by the company for more search exposure and a new way to gain sales leads. Indeed, it probably qualifies as both. Groupon stresses Pages’ value for business owners (SEO, reputation, social engagement) but there are […]
YP Joins Google’s Premier SMB Partner Program
YP is the largest of the major U.S. yellow pages publishers (and local search providers), with roughly 4,000 sales and support reps and 575,000 (mostly small business) advertisers. The company has now joined the ranks of the Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner Program. Also on the list are fellow publishers Dex Media, Hearst and hibu, as well […]
New “Google My Business” Simplifies Local Marketing For SMBs
For quite some time since the introduction of Google+ Local, managing local listings and content across Google properties has confused many local SEOs and local business owners alike. Now Google has launched a new, integrated approach called Google My Business. The core idea is to make it “easier than ever to update business information across […]
Report: Basic Local Optimization Steps Boosted Google Visibility By 179 Percent
Digital agency and technology provider SIM Partners released a report (registration required) discussing how use of several basic Local SEO tactics can dramatically improve visibility on Google. The study involved 315 US business locations. These are not independent, small businesses. SIM Partners typically works with national-local businesses that have national brands but local offices, hotels or stores. […]
Is Bing A Better Buy Than Google AdWords For Small Business?
Data released yesterday by small business (SMB) marketing platform Pricing Engine argues, as a number of others have in the past, that Bing ads are a “more efficient” buy than Google AdWords. While Google has more search volume and higher CTRs, Bing emerges as a lower cost source of leads for SMBs according to the company’s […]
Google Intros Android App For Managing Google Places Listings
Local business owners have a new tool for managing their Google Places For Business Listing. Mike Blumenthal got the scoop on the new Android app that lets SMBs update their business information, post update and photos to their Google+ Local Page, respond to comments on Google+ and more. It also offers very basic analytics data […]
Study Finds Small Businesses Waste 25 Percent Of Their PPC Budgets
While pay-per-click marketing has become an integral part of many small businesses’ marketing plans, most SMBs struggle to find the time and resources to manage their PPC campaigns. A new study finds that, due to managerial and strategic errors, SMBs inadvertently waste a quarter of their paid search budgets. Paid search software firm, WordStream, conducted […]
WordStream Launches PPC Landing Page Creator, Lead Management Tool For SMBs
Successful PPC lead generation campaigns demand good landing pages. Yet many small business marketers are left without the resources to create solid landing pages that will convert visitors into leads. WordStream, a PPC platform designed specifically for small and mid-sized businesses and their agencies, sees this problem up close every day. In response, the company […]
Google Updates AdWords Express Sign-Up Process, Ad Copy Preview And Dashboard
Google has updated the interface for AdWords Express, Google’s AdWords product designed for small businesses. Among the interface updates are a redesigned dashboard to show an at-a-glance look at ad views (impressions), clicks and calls generated as well as a pie chart that tracks monthly budget expenditures. A new performance graph allows advertisers to compare results […]
How To Increase Lead Conversions With Visitor Engagement
When the iPhone was first released, everyone marveled over its amazing simplicity and user experience. The world fell in love, and the mobile industry was changed overnight. Other phones, if they weren’t smartphones, were suddenly viewed as cheap and not very useful. We have all experienced this same truth at the websites we visit. We […]
93% Of Local SEOs Expect To Grow Their Business In 2013
Last week, we published the findings of the BrightLocal Local SEO Industry Survey 2013. The objective of this survey is to gain greater understanding about the health and nature of the local SEO Industry. Through this survey, we aim to find out what life is like “on the ground” for those in the local SEO […]
The Big AdWords Update: Enhanced Campaigns Puts The Focus On Mobile
“If we were going to build AdWords today, what would it look like?” That’s the question Google’s Nick Fox, VP of Product Management, and his team began asking last year. The result is AdWords enhanced campaigns, a major update announced today that is designed to simplify campaign management across multiple devices, and to increase adoption […]
Google Promoting AdWords Express In Google+ As Way “To Get More Followers”
This weekend, DejanSEO noted Google may have stepped up its promotion of its simplified SEM offering for small businesses, AdWords Express, in Google+ as a way to “get more followers.” AdWords Express has now been around officially since July 2011. However, it has seen a number of changes and refinements. Google initially rolled out this particular […]
Facebook Gets Into Local Search With “Facebook Nearby” For iOS & Android
As of today, you can count Facebook as a potentially significant new competitor in local search — on mobile devices. The company is updating the “Nearby” feature in its iOS and Android apps Nearby Becomes Local Search Tool Previously Nearby was about finding where your friends had checked-in. After the app update Nearby will still […]
Are Small Businesses Abandoning AdWords? A Reality Check
Are US small businesses (SMBs) abandoning Google AdWords in droves because of rising CPC prices? That’s the implication of a recent story in the New York Times: [Concern over the rising cost of keywords] has become increasingly common as online advertising has become a standard channel for large companies. Attracting those additional advertisers has been […]
Microsoft Advertising Is Becoming “Bing” For SMBs
There’s Microsoft, there’s Bing, there’s Yahoo, and there’s the Search Alliance. How can any small business search advertiser figure out what’s what? That’s the thinking behind the rebranding of Microsoft Advertising to Bing, announced this week. Besides the name change, marketing collateral and web sites will incorporate the large beautiful images that the Bing consumer […]
Report: Social Media Spending Threatens To Overtake Paid Search Among SMBs
Borrell Associates has come out with an extensive new report about small business (“SMBs”) and social media adoption. It contains forecasts and spending estimates as well as other data about SMB usage of social media as a marketing tool. There’s a great deal of data already in the market about SMB adoption of social media. […]
Survey Says SEO The Single Most Important Marketing Channel For SMBs
SEO: one channel to rule them all? A new “merchant confidence survey” from lead-gen company MerchantCircle/Reply.com, among 2,500 US small businesses, finds that search engine optimization is the marketing channel they would choose if they could choose only one. The question asked was: “If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into […]
Chinese Search Engine Baidu Will Spend A Half-Billion Dollars To Train SEOs & Get Small Businesses Online
Chinese search engine Baidu will reportedly spend nearly a half-billion dollars to bring small businesses online and, among other things, train 100,000 search marketing professionals in China. As reported by both NASDAQ and AMP, Baidu will make a $470 million investment in China’s online market between now and the end of 2015. The NASDAQ article […]
Google Launches “AdWords Premier SMB Partner Program”
Google is introducing what it calls its “AdWords Premier SMB Partner Program.” It’s essentially a vendor referral program for small business (SMB) advertisers interested in working with AdWords. Google has developed a list of companies, many of whom were part of its “authorized reseller” program, to which it will refer SMBs. The involved vendors get […]