LOC@L SEO GUIDE

New to local search engine optimization? Subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for stopping by.I’ll be speaking at the Kelsey Interactive Local Media conference in Santa Clara on Nov. 19th.  I am still working on the content of my session but it’s fair to say that it will have something to do with local search [...]

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I am working on one more thing than Greg Sterling and haven’t had a chance to come up with a genius local search blog post lately.  I’ll be back soon so hang in there.  Thanks.
In the meantime catch up on your investment advice by reading Doug Noland.

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Recently there has been a good deal of prognostication on the fate of start-ups in the wake of the current economic enema.  And while things are definitely getting tighter and companies are getting more cautious with their spending, I have a suspicion that local/SMB oriented Web start-ups might have a slightly easier time of things.
It’s [...]

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This one probably doesn’t apply to your standard SMB website, but if you run a big local search site, this one’s for you.
“Faceted search” is the rubrick for a site that allows users to refine search results by categories (aka “facets”).  This kind of interface appears on a lot of sites (Kayak and Kudzu are [...]

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The Onion is genius (and not safe for work) (and my wife didn’t find this in the least bit funny and was possibly offended by it so consider yourself warned)

Was There Too Much Sex And Profanity In The HBO Presidential Debate?

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…as there is always the chance that the algorithms won’t go your way.  As always Mike Blumenthal’s blog has surfaced another story of an unfortunate business owner that is being hurt by Google Local Business Center’s peculiarities.
Here’s where you need to go if you are looking for a man with a van in London.

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SMB2B social networking is becoming the flavor of the month in local search.  It makes sense to focus on businesses as how many more online yellow pages sites focused on consumers can we and the search engines collectively stand?
Along with sites like Merchant Circle & GetFave and others comes a new one I just discovered, [...]

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…is going to get a ton of clicks to his site over the next 24 hours and probably a ton of hilarious emails too.  Getting a presidential candidate to use you in his talking points is a great SEO strategy.  Tip of the gray hat to you Joe The Plumber.
Thinking of buying some new domains:
joethebeverlyhillsduiattorney.com
joethemesotheliomaattorney.com
joetheherbalviagraandpenisenlarger.com

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DaveN has some interesting thoughts about keyword targeting strategies for attracting consumers living in a global recession.
This doesn’t mean people will be searching for “discount caviar”…optimising for “cheap X”, “bargain Y” and “deals on Z” is going to be more important in commodity spaces though. Consumer goods, financial products, utility services and the like will [...]

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When I started at InsiderPages, Yelp didn’t exist, but there was this service called AngiesList that we were obsessed with. AngiesList was a pioneer in figuring out how to get contractor reviews and ratings out of people.
Back in the day, InsiderPages made a splash by giving out $5 Starbucks cards for five business reviews.  One [...]

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