I think Facebook’s entry into the Local game is a watershed moment for our little corner of the world. It’s going to be extremely interesting to see how the other major players respond. The battle for Local domination is officially afoot…here’s how I’m currently handicapping the players, based on a set of six criteria. I’ll do my best to revisit this map in a year or so, but for now, here’s how I’d break down the world of Local Search. Time for someone to roll the dice…

I suggest they may want to reconsider this one…

Mike Blumenthal once again breaks the news on a new initiative from Google Places: the ability for business owners to respond directly to reviews. Google is not the first local search portal to come out with this product enhancement, but as arguably the biggest and certainly the most visible, it puts incredible pressure on the remaining stragglers to do so. It’s a great complement to the UI/link shift — allowing business owners even more control over their Place Page–and is a clear indication to me that Google is headed more in the direction of Facebook Fan Pages every day.

As reported by Mike Blumenthal earlier this morning, Google Places is now making phone calls to selected (random…?) Local businesses to verify their contact information. Sort of a virtual reverse check-in, if you will. This initiative seems to be a genuine effort by Google to decrease the spam in their Places index–the engineers’ hearts are absolutely in the right place here. I am all for as much human interaction with business owners as Google thinks is possible. But it’s frustrating to see such a good idea executed in this manner.

My thoughts on what the latest changes to Local results in Google Universal search mean for both SMB’s and IYP’s.

In an effort to kill two birds with one stone, I recently (last weekend) published a collection of about 100 terms used frequently in Local Search — the Local Search Glossary. My definitions may not be technically 100% accurate but they’re rather intended to give business owners a decent sense of what each word or acronym means.

Earlier this morning, I published the results of the 2010 Local Search Ranking Factors survey. I actually added 20 questions to this year’s survey to try to assess some of the new considerations in Local Search–a daunting 30% increase in the workload for our panelists. We had 34 experts take part, including a handful of gurus from Canada and Europe and one from Australia. Their insights are truly remarkable, and although it’s a lengthy piece, I’d recommend getting into the full depth of the responses as soon as you have time.

Obviously, a lot has happened in the last six months–let alone the last 18 months. We’d have hardly recognized the space of May 1, 2010 in December of 2008. This extreme iteration is going to continue to frustrate and “blow the minds” of SEOs and SMBs alike…but I do my best to highlight some of the most critical developments in this post.

An update on the conferences I’ll be speaking at/attending this Spring: GetListed.org Local University, SMX West, SearchFest, Local Search Summit, DFWSEM, and SMX Advanced.

Back in 2008, when Pat Sexton and I were brainstorming the ideas that would eventually turn into GetListed.org, one of our very first long-term goals was to put together a low-cost seminar series that would introduce business owners to the world of online marketing. It pleases us greatly to announce a major step towards that goal: the very first GetListed.org Local University event in Spokane, WA on February 4th.