Why Google Local Services Ads are Winning the Local Search War
Do you realize how often Google Local Services Ads benefit you as a consumer? Picture this: you’re at home at 8:00 PM on a Tuesday when a pipe bursts in your basement. Panic sets in as water begins to pool around your water heater. You grab your phone and frantically search “emergency plumber Salt Lake […]
Google Maps Marketing: How to Get More Business
Google Maps is the most popular navigation app, with six times more people trusting it to guide them to where they need to go and provide information about areas of interest than any other. Your business profile’s visibility and accuracy on this app are key when it comes to getting new visitors. Although it may […]
How to Make the Most of Google’s Local Listings
Optimizing your business on local search engines is essential to online marketing and customer engagement. More and more people are using their smartphones to quickly search google for what they need. You want to make sure your business is one of the first to appear, and that it gives your next potential customer the information […]
Ranking for ‘Near Me’ Phrases
In this era of smart phones and handheld voice searches, more and more people searching for local businesses and services on their phones. In a post from Linda Buquet, a prominent Google local search specialist, said, “Google stated that seaches including ‘near me’ have increased 34X since 2011.” With that large of an increase you may be […]
The new look for Google+ is not looking good for local search
In the past Google+, Googles social media platform, was a great place for local businesses. The business page would display the name, address, phone number, local reviews and any posts on the same page. Recently there have been a lot of changes made to the Google+ pages, with the addition of the Collections, and others. The […]
Getting reviews for your business
Local reviews are an important part of any business. According to a study done by brightlocal.com, “88% of consumers read reviews to determine the quality of a local business” and “72% of consumers will take action after reading a positive review.” The issue with many business owners is that many do not know how to […]
Importance of Google Reviews Continues to Grow
The need for local businesses to focus on getting great customer reviews, especially on Google+, is growing in importance. I’m no Nostrodamis, Google always shows their hand by 1) telling us that they actually look at reviews to help determine Maps rankings (yes, they told us that, Just as Chad Spencer) and 2) launching cool […]
Recognizing Personalized Results
In my last post I talked a lot about personalized search results. It occurred to me that it would be nice to show you what I’m talking about. Enjoy these gloriously annotated and illustrative screen shots of a few searches! First off I did a search for “android.” I chose that term because a lot […]
Local reviews and Google Maps
Google is extending the site they consider for reviews. The impact on local maps search seems obvious, as citation building may now include less traditional sources and more local content. The implications are positive I believe. Local factors should impact local search results, and this change should do that. Check out the article on Search […]