Local SEO Archive

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.

Google (actually Maps Guide Deanna) recently authored a post on its small business blog outlining best practices for business titles.  In the first paragraph they state that “We want to help you make the most of your business listing,” and they go on to state clear examples of spam for a business called “Fly Fishing [...]

Hey everyone, low signal post here, but I’ve gotten a few emails and Tweets recently asking if I am attending PubCon (no), why wasn’t I at SMX East (too many other commitments this fall–see below) and I figured I’d try to head off some others here.

It’s nearly unheard of that my two passions in life (golf and Local Search) intersect…but after Jim Furyk won $10 Million in the convoluted PGA Tour FedEx Cup yesterday (golf’s version of the Superbowl), that’s exactly what happened. Read on for the story of a local business who could be in for a major bump in Google Places rankings.

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.

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.