SEO Industry Archive

A quick note, readers, that I’ll be heading to BIA/Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media conference next week in San Francisco.  You may remember from previous years, this has been one of my absolute favorite events to attend–much different from a typical SEO show, action-packed (and often contentious) presentations, and extremely stimulating networking.  If you’re in [...]

Hey everyone, I know I’ve been incredibly lax in posting recently.  October was a very busy month.  Including the last week of September and the first week of November, I was busy putting on four Local University events with Mike Blumenthal, Mary Bowling, Matt McGee, Aaron Weiche (PS–Minnesotans looking for a web gig, Aaron is hiring), [...]

Most of you have probably heard that Google will go before the Senate Antitrust Committee in a couple hours.  One of the star “prosecution” witnesses is Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. Regular readers know that in general, I’d like to see more oversight of Google’s activities by somebody & I’m hoping that these proceedings lead to exactly [...]

I came across a very pleasant surprise on NYTimes.com last night: this article on the ease of crowdsourcing business closures within Google Places.   “The Oracle of Olean,” Mike Blumenthal, features prominently in the second half of the article, as the Times found his experiment on closing Google’s Mountain View location particularly illustrative and amusing. [...]

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.

Pretty much the only thing that’s gone less than perfectly on my two-month trip overseas is that my iPhone was stolen here in Birmingham on Friday evening. Obviously, after the initial shock and incredible disappointment, I’ve had some time to think about the situation & felt like writing my thoughts publicly.

…Is this place still here?

Some thoughts on the triggers for Google’s latest attempt to crowdsource underlying business data, and what the implications are for the local search industry.

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.