Cold Hard Numbers on How Third-Party Reviews Help Google Places Rankings
Customer reviews are crucial to your local rankings and overall success in Google Places, as you may know. You need reviews that customers write directly on your Google Places page, and you need...
View ArticleWhich Awards Grow Your Local-Search Stature?
Every now and then I stumble across a business in Google Places that has a sweet “best-of” –type award sitting right at the top of its Places page. I don’t run across these awards too frequently—but...
View Article21 Ways to Get Customer Reviews: the Ultimate List
I don’t usually do this, but let’s get theoretical for just a second: Every satisfied customer of yours should bring you more customers. The ideal is for word-of-mouth to do all the work—for your...
View ArticleThe Local Business Reviews Ecosystem
In the offline world it’s hard to figure out exactly how your business gets a certain reputation, or exactly how “word gets around.” But online this is something you can actually figure out pretty...
View ArticleHow to Add a Free CitySearch Business Listing (Temporary Solution)
Adding a free business listing to CitySearch.com has always been a little tricky. It hasn’t even always been possible to do so: the site has flip-flopped between offering free listings and not offering...
View ArticleIYP Ranking Factors: Getting Visible in Local-Biz Directories
IYPs – short for “Internet Yellow Pages” – get a bum rap. Some of it is true: Yes, they’re directories, not search engines. Yes, some of them are mere flies on the windshield of Google. Yes, we often...
View ArticleReview of Grade.us (Tool for Customer Reviews)
Recently I learned of a new tool that helps business owners ask customers for reviews. It’s called Grade.us. From what I’ve seen so far, I like it. How it works You create a page (hosted on Grade.us)...
View ArticleState of the Most-Important Local Search Sites (Mid-2013)
A lot has changed in the last few months in the world of local search. All of it affects your efforts to get visible to local customers. I’m not even talking about Google+ Local. Like Oprah’s weight,...
View ArticleBoss Jobs in Local SEO
I’m talking about the specific tasks in a local SEO campaign that the boss of the company must do personally. The boss: the one person who can’t quit or get fired, who most wants more customers, and...
View ArticleBrightLocal Webinar on Local Reviews
Today I had the pleasure once again of speaking on a webinar put on by BrightLocal. It’s part of the InsideLocal series of webinars that’s been going since July, and that will continue through the end...
View ArticleThe Best [BLEEP]in’ Local Link Questionnaire
You need at least a few good links to rank well in Google Places and beyond. Especially post-Pigeon update, and especially if you’re in a competitive local market. But that’s easier said than done....
View ArticleGoogle Helpouts Didn’t Have Time to Bleed
Google Helpouts and Jesse Ventura’s character in Predator have much in common: They both showed early promise, but got killed off way too soon. Well, on second thought, I guess that’s all they have in...
View ArticleHow to Use Wildcard Searches for Local Keyword-Research: Lightning Round with...
Two little characters – the asterisk ( * ) and the underscore ( _ ) can help your keyword-research. Simply add them to various search terms you type into Google when researching keywords, and...
View Article20 Local SEO Techniques You Overlooked (Almost)
We local-SEO geeks talk about the same old basic principles a little too much: clean up your citations, don’t get penalized by Google, be mobile-friendly, earn “local” links, create “unique” content,...
View ArticleWhich Local Review Sites Are on Your Side?
Not all review sites play games with customers and business owners. In that way, Yelp and Google+ are outliers. Reviews there are important, of course. But if you run into difficulty getting reviews...
View ArticleWho Can Write You an Online Review – Besides Customers?
Tricky question. Let’s start with the obvious gold standard: your customers write openly about their experiences with you in online reviews, and you did such a good job for them that those reviews...
View ArticleLipstick on a Pig: Google Places “Report a Problem” Requests Now Rejected...
A couple days ago, Colan of Imprezzio Marketing reported that the next-to-useless “Report a problem” feature in Google Places had been revamped. I was excited. After all, Google made it easier to...
View ArticlePasting or Embedding Google Reviews on Your Site: Will They Get Filtered?
For a few years now, people like me have told clients and others that it’s probably not a good idea to copy their Google reviews and paste them onto their site as testimonials. The concern is that...
View ArticleHauling in More Local Customers…Even When Your Wheels Are Spinning
That’s the name of the talk I gave at MN Search yesterday. I covered 25 quick wins for attracting more local customers when you don’t know what to do next. Some of my suggestions are for local...
View Article25 Principles of Building Effective City Pages for Local SEO
So you want to create “city pages” to attract local customers in places where you don’t have an office. How can you make those pages attract customers rather than repulse them, rank well in the...
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....