Category: Google+ Local

I have published a new article in the “Complaint Series” at GetFiveStars: SURVEY: How Quickly Should A Business Respond to a Complaint? Critical to any complaint plan is figuring out the who, when and where of responding to them. I wanted to understand the consumer perspective so I asked two questions: When you complain to a … Continue reading SURVEY: How Quickly Should A Business Respond to a Complaint? →

You would hope that most customers would speak up and communicate the problems that they experienced. Unfortunately that’s not what happens. Most of them will just remain quiet, you never know of their problems or dissatisfaction and they stop doing business with you. In my third post in the Complaint series (soon I will be getting complaints about … Continue reading GetFiveStars SURVEY: What Happens When Things Go South? You Lose More Customers Than You Ever Know →

Join Mary Bowling, Ed Reese and myself as we discuss: What Parts of the Local Pack Will be Monetized? I think that as a local SEO, one of the things you have to keep your eye on is how much is going paid and preparing yourself and your clients for the fact that Facebook and Google … Continue reading Video: What Parts of the Local Pack Will be Monetized? →

As part of my ongoing series on the impact of complaints on a business I have published my second article in the series: Survey: 8 Things That Really Cause Consumers to Complain . Handling customer complaints is one of those areas where most local businesses drop the ball. Yet its an area that has disastrous … Continue reading GetFiveStars Post: 8 Things That Really Cause Consumers to Complain →

I have just published my first of a number of articles (I am at 4 and counting) dealing with the question of customer complaints:  5 Good Things About Customer Complaints. These articles will cover ideas, processes and research to help you understand the whys and wherefores of complaints and how their successful resolution can really … Continue reading Complaints Here, There and Everywhere – A Series About Complaints at GetFiveStars.com →

Lately, having had some terrible customer service experiences with some big brands, I have been thinking a lot about complaints and what they mean to the consumer and the business. Complaints are so very different from a bad review and the appropriate responses are different as well. And I know when I ran a bricks and … Continue reading Complaints and Their Role in Business – I need your help →

Yesterday (first reported on Twitter by Craig Harkins, an SEO manager at InterContinental Hotels Group) Google switched virtually every hotel profile photo in their Hotel Local Pack results from an exterior to an interior shot. While Google ostensibly offers businesses the ability to set this profile photo for their own business, that appearance of “freedom” to a large … Continue reading Google to Hotels: We Pick Your Profile Photo →

One area of Local Search where Google has been active with regular improvements has been the Google My Business API. Google seems to have committed to a regular schedule of regular updates and along that line V 3.0 was introduced today. There are two main features that have been released in this update: Ability to … Continue reading Google Releases GMB API V3.0 →

Every year around this time I get my Superpages Yellow Pages. And every year around this time I report,  one more time, that the print yellow Pages are dying. This year is no exception. The total page count, contrary to last year’s aberrant small increase, continued to drop and the book now sports 84 total pages. … Continue reading The Annual Print Yellow Pages Page Count And Lemonade →

Sergey Alakov, a Toronto SEO, reported on Twitter seeing this Google test of a slimmed down local mobile Knowledge Panel on a branded search. The mobile search was Humberview Motorsports Mississauga: Here is what is currently seen for that search:

Rel…

I reported earlier in the day that Google seemed to be rolling out a new Tag like attribute for the free hotel listings in the Local Pack. During the past week, as noted by Brian Barwig and Michael Wallace, Google has also been adding paid ads to the top of the Local Finder. Together they … Continue reading Hotel Local Finder – Ain’t Nuttin’ but Ads →

Remember back in 2010 when Google rolled out “Tags” to allow for paid enhancement of your local listing? Well, at least in the Hotel world, its deja vue all over again as these paid insertions into the free Local Pack seem to have made a comeback. The Local Pack which has been the last bastion of “free” placement … Continue reading Google Hotel Local Packs Now Showing Paid Tag Promo →

QR Codes never took off in the US. It was an offline to online play that always required too many apps,  took too many steps, was too obtuse and ended up not solving any problems. I once used them to learn the history of the streets a small town in Hungary – the only time I … Continue reading Will Facebook Salvage QR Codes from the Dustbin of Local Marketing History? →

Google appears to be  rolling out local gas prices to the mobile Local 3 Pack. The pricing is also visible on the Local Finder and the location Knowledge panel. Spotted last night by Dr Pete on the desktop and  Adam Humphreys of Making8  and reported this AM by Barry Schwartz it is visible to me on … Continue reading Gas Prices Added to Local 3-Pack →

The Google My Business guidelines, the bible for what is and isn’t acceptable behavior when listing a business, seem to have come up missing from the Google My Business Help Files. (H/T to Helmut Geissler, Google Maps and Google My Business Top Contributor). The page URL that previously linked to them now shows an error … Continue reading Google My Business Guidelines – MIA →

Senator Blumenthal (no relationship) interviewed Professor Tim Wu, who last year came out against Google’s Local Universal results as opposed to an alternative result, and Prefessor Meamed as to whether consumers have been harmed by Google’s behaviors, particularly in local. To paraphrase Prof Wu starting at 01:59 in the video: There was not strong evidence … Continue reading Senate Hearings on Google and their Behavior in Local →

Join Mary Bowling and myself at Local U for our weekly Deep Dive as we look at some of the issues around spamming Google Maps from the agency and business point view.

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Last week when I was discussing the new Google approach to immersive mobile search I noted that if Google didn’t get you on the click they got you on the clock. This definitely falls under “the click” category. Google, in what is clearly a test*, is offering movie purchases up with a bold, call to … Continue reading Google Testing Enhanced Buy Buttons for Movie Ticket Purchase →