LOC@L SEO GUIDE

In general you should know who your competition is in the SERPs, but Google just made it easier (unless I have totally missed this feature for months which is possible). I just noticed a “Pages similar to ” widget at the bottom of the results. Here’s what I got when I queried “localseoguide”

It [...]

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National IYPs (Internet Yellow Pages) have long been amongst the biggest benefactors of organic search engine traffic.  The typical IYP has north of 15MM business listings.  Add category pages, city pages, reviews, maps, etc and you are easily looking at a 50MM+ page site with a huge amount of high value & high volume keyword [...]

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IAC/Citysearch just announced a contest for third party developers to come up with “the next hot local guide app for the Web and mobile devices” on their Sidewalk.com domain.  It’s called the “Sidewalk: Right Here Right Now Contest”.

BTW - banana peel, fire hydrant & pigeon?  Subliminal messages?
Greg Sterling thinks this is interesting because it [...]

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My bud Ahmed has put together a list of the top IYPs in the US based on reach derived from Google’s stats.  Nothing too surprising except that Citysearch is #1.  I also think there are a number of sites missing from the list - 50states for example.  But still good info for all you local [...]

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The guys over at Palore have been sending me some interesting info on the local search sites they have been crawling.  Recently they looked at how many sites a particular business appeared on as an advertiser.  According to their data it looks like a high percentage of SMBs advertise on only one site.   Check [...]

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Hey gang,
While on vacation in Mexico I published a post about Citysearch perhaps having some issues with Google by providing links to advertisers without adding a nofollow tag. Matt McGee rightly pointed out that Citysearch is linking to advertisers via a redirect that will not provide any SEO value and therefore is not in [...]

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Miriam Ellis just put together a fantastic post on all of the sites that Google Maps is using as sources for review information for the hospitality industry. Here’s the list:
10best.com
Aol.com
ChefMoz.org
Citysearch.com
Dine.com
DiningGuide.com
Dinnerbroker.com
Frommers.com
Gayot.com
Giatamedia.com
Greenopia.com
Holidaycheck.com
Holidaycheck.de
Holidaycheck.es
Holidaycheck.fr
Holidaycheck.it
Holidaycheck.nl
Holidaycheck.pl
Holidaycheck.ru
Hotelchatter.com
HotelGuide.com
Hotelguide.net
Insiderpages.com
Menupages.com
Mytravelguide.com
Priceline.com
RestaurantRow.com
Travelocity.com
Travelpost.com
Tripadvisor.com
Virtualtourist.com
Yahoo.com
Yelp.com
Zagat.com
I recommend checking out Miriam’s post for some great insight into how to use this list to your advantage.
My $0.02 as your Local SEO Guide is [...]

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Making sure your business’ location and services data is up to date across the Web is perhaps the most important thing you can do to help potential customers find you. And the Local SEO Guide is here to help.
The sites listed below are some of the most important in the local search world. On most [...]

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Here’s part II of what I’ll be talking about at SMX Local in a few minutes.
So you’re a business and you have a local website or websites you like (or don’t like but have been successful at not dealing with that issue). Your business info is listed all over the Web. You’re on a lot [...]

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