Local SEO Archive

Hat tip to Linda Buquet of Catalyst Local Marketing for being the first to spot the Austin and Portland versions below, and thus the first to publicize the overall concept. Google has just released city-specific business directories that are clearly going to compete with Yelp, Citysearch, and all the other IYPs in terms of highlighting [...]

Well, it’s hard to believe this is already the fourth time I’ve had the privilege to compile the opinions of the world’s top experts in Local Search Marketing. My initial comments about the results of the 2011 Local Search Ranking Factors survey follow below.

As I found out from a Twitter conversation last week, I apparently neglected to share with people that I’m traveling in sunny England–it’s rained exactly twice since April 1–through the beginning of June. As a result, it’s been almost a full month since I last checked my feedreader and I was finally able to plow through it this morning. There have obviously been some pretty key developments to keep an eye on if you’re in the Local Search space.

Today, Mike Blumenthal has released a web equity infographic subtitled Owning Your Local Web Presence that, like Matt McGee’s SEO Success Pyramid, will stand the test of time, and may even eclipse Matt’s graphic as one of the most frequently-referenced in our space. In a brilliantly simple design, Mike illustrates for small and local business owners seven different layers of marketing elements, and how they all fit together on the search vs social media continuum.

As Andrew Shotland wrote so brilliantly several months ago, the writing is on the wall for Internet Yellow Pages sites with respect to organic search referrals–at least from Google. But not all the IYPs are just running around like Chicken Little. Some of them–well, at least InsiderPages–are actually thinking very creatively about how to extract as many possible clicks from the diminishing amount of organic real estate they’ve been allotted.

SMB’s and SEO’s alike lost a great advocate at Bing Local Friday — Product Manager Mikko Ollila has left Bing to take on a product marketing position at Atlas Accelerator. I feel much the same as I did when I found out that MapsGuideJen was leaving Google a couple of years ago.

Obviously, it’s been a whirlwind last couple of months in Local Search…it may take all of next week to write the 2010 version of the Year in Review.  But I’ve had a few ideas bouncing around in my brain about Hotpot recently–why Google released it, and why they’re promoting it so hard, to the point [...]

It has been a struggle to get back into the groove over the weekend and the early part of the week. In case it wasn’t obvious from my liveblog, last week’s BIA / Kelsey Group ILM show in Santa Clara left me feeling nothing short of overwhelmed by the pace at which our industry is evolving.

I’m blogging live from the Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media Conference in Santa Clara for the next couple of days. Truly looking forward to hearing what the rockstar panelists have to say today, tomorrow, and Thursday…last year’s show was one of my favorite conferences ever. I’ll be in-and-out of meetings for the whole conference but will do my best to keep up with as many panels as I can and will follow-up with a full recap this weekend.

Seems like everyone is talking about the New York Times story over the weekend about Vitaly Borker and his shortsighted PR strategy to garner a bunch of bad publicity, partly in order to rank at Google.

Everyone from Danny Sullivan to Jessica Lee to Greg Sterling to Google itself has weighed in on the controversy.

Thing is, Local Search experts have long speculated that the valence of reviews has had an extremely low, if any, impact on rankings, whereas the volume of reviews has always been considered one of the strongest factors.