Yelp: We’re Second Only To Google In Local Data Quality
Yelp has long maintained that the company has one of the best (if not the best) local data sets out there. There are third parties that have come up with findings that don’t agree with that claim. Recently, Yelp decided to take matters into its own hands and benchmark itself and the quality…
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How Local Businesses Can Overcome Obstacles To Mobile Conversion
For the growing number of consumers who rely on their mobile devices to search for local business information, their focus is on making a purchase — and fast. The latest Google/Nielsen “Mobile Path to Purchase” study, released last week, shows that consumers who use their mobile…
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The Return Of Pegman And Other New Google Maps Features
The new full-screen Google Maps were announced this summer at Google’s developer conference. However the company is still rolling it out to users. Today on the Google LatLong blog a number of new (or returning) features were introduced. Among them, the “Pegman” Street View icon is…
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Google Places Listings Get Integrated Into Android’s Phone App — And They’re Terrible
A big change in Android 4.4 is that those using Google’s new mobile operating system, nicknamed “KitKat,” can search for businesses right from within the Phone app. How’s it work? For me, it’s awful. Google+ Invades The Android 4.4 “KitKat” Phone App: What It Means For…
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Ingress: Is Google’s AR Game A Stealth Local Data Effort?
I recently got a new Android phone and found a little card in the box advertising Ingress, the “massively multi-player location-based alternate reality game from Niantic Labs at Google.” Ingress had slipped past my notice despite Greg Sterling’s mention of it nearly a year ago….
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Report: Basic Local Optimization Steps Boosted Google Visibility By 179 Percent
Digital agency and technology provider SIM Partners released a report (registration required) discussing how use of several basic Local SEO tactics can dramatically improve visibility on Google. The study involved 315 US business locations. These are not independent, small businesses. SIM Partners…
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Yelp Q3 2013 Revenue Up 68% At $61.2 Million For The Quarter
Yelp released its Q3 2013 earnings report today, posting a 68 percent growth in revenue from the third quarter of 2012, with net revenue at $61.2 million for the quarter ending on September 30, 2013. Cumulative reviews on Yelp have increased 42 percent…
Did Hummingbird Just Kill Your Local SEO Strategy?
Let’s cut to the chase: no, it didn’t (see Betteridge’s Law of Headlines). But Search Engine Land tells me the Hummingbird stuff really drives the page views these days, so you only have yourself to blame. :) That said, Google’s Hummingbird algorithm, along with all of the…
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How Local Businesses Should Size Up & Tackle Social Media
The most frequently asked question posed these days at events, webinars and new client meetings is “What is the best social media platform for my local business?” Research shows social channels are becoming more important signals in major search engine algorithms that affect the entire SEO and…
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34% Of Local SEOs Make Less Than $30,000/Year. Why?
As the local search industry evolves and becomes more complex, the role of local search consultants and agencies becomes more critical. Complexity is increasing across most areas of our fast-growing industry, which makes “local search” all the more confusing for local business owners….
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New Foursquare Homepage Offers Context, Time-Sensitive Recommendations
In its continuing bid to become more useful and to differentiate from competitors such as Yelp and Google, Foursquare introduced a redesigned homepage this week. There’s a signed-in and signed-out experience. The major difference between the two is friend activity and personalization. The new…
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Google Intros Android App For Managing Google Places Listings
Local business owners have a new tool for managing their Google Places For Business Listing. Mike Blumenthal got the scoop on the new Android app that lets SMBs update their business information, post update and photos to their Google+ Local Page, resp…
Homeward Bound: A Great Long-Form Ad For Google Maps
One of the most popular articles on the AdWeek site today showcases what is essentially an ad for Google Maps/Earth. It features an Indian man (Saroo Brierley) who as a young child falls asleep on a train with his brother. His brother doesn’t wake him up at their designated stop. When he…
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Google Now Cards Invade The New Google Maps
Google sure does love its new card-based information display. They’re the primary display for Google Now information. They’re part of Google’s new unified design on mobile devices. They’re how all information is displayed on Google Glass. They’ve been spotted in the…
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Bing Places Expands To Canada, UK
Bing Places is finally available beyond U.S. borders. The company announced today that local businesses in Canada and the United Kingdom — and search marketing agencies that work with local businesses there — can use Bing Places to add and manage local business listings for inclusion in…
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The Local Marketer’s Guide To Apple Maps for iOS7
While the launch of iOS7 has received a ton of press and blogger nitpicking about every last detail, little has been said about how the new version of Apple Maps affects local marketers. I feel like most marketers are still ignoring Apple Maps because …
Japan Tells Webmasters Not To Use Google Maps Over Disputed Territory
Fox News reports Japan has instructed their government authorities and state-run universities to not use Google Maps on their web sites because of a conflict over disputed territories. The territory is Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in South Korea and Ap…
Local Voice Search Wars And The Opportunity For Businesses
Since the official inception of mobile voice search with Apple’s launch of Siri in 2011, consumers, search professionals and businesses have watched for the rise of voice search in local. Despite Siri’s initial inadequacies and obvious voice recognition challenges, savvy multitasking…
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Surprise: Yahoo Maps Gets A Facelift, New Features
Shortly after she became Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer declared (disappointingly) that she wasn’t going to invest in Local. In turns out that what she meant was she wasn’t going to go head to head with Google in Maps. Her predecessor Carol Bartz had outsourced maps (to Nokia) and she…
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Survey: Quality Of Citations Matters More Than Quantity
At the start of August, David Mihm published the findings of the latest installment of the Local Search Ranking Factors Survey. This year, the breakdown & presentation of survey results has been taken to a new level. Ranking factors are grouped by signal type (e.g., Place Page Signals), then…
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