LOC@L SEO GUIDE

Google announced a number of upgrades to its voice search application today.  One of them looks like it could be particularly troublesome to local search directory players.  From TechCrunch:
Another feature is the ability to call any business in Google Search. This does not have to be a company in your local contacts app — it [...]

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Executive Summary: Who knows?
But here’s a data point of one:
The Main Street Meat N Fish Market recently opened in Pleasanton.  My wife asked me to find their hours so I went to Google and queried “pleasanton meat n fish market“.  At the top of the SERP was this result from Patch.com (congrats to them!) but [...]

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With all of the brouhaha going on about Google’s test of a new local SERP for category searches that will make it much harder for local directories to get traffic, I became almost willfully blind to the more subtle change that had occurred to the SERP for business name queries.  Thanks to Patrick Altoft for [...]

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Chris Silver Smith brings up a great point in today’s Local’s Only column about Google’s new local SERP design they are testing:
…you might think that the newer, larger listing treatment might be beneficial for the visibility of these businesses. But, think again—for any of them which have been doing significant search marketing activities, this sea [...]

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David Mihm has done it once again and published another edition of Local Search Ranking Factors.  This year David surveyed 32 local search geeks to get their takes on the top factors for ranking high in Google Maps.  The entire set of results is well worth the time for any business that wants to do [...]

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Mike Blumenthal has a great recap of a recent webinar held by the Google Places team where they answered a lot of frequently asked questions.  Here are a couple of my faves:
Q: Can we use call tracking phone numbers in our listings? if not, why?
A: No, please use the most local phone number available. [...]

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Dave Rodecker of Local Splash uncovers the latest tweak to Google Place Pages, the ability for business owners to add custom links such as Twitter and Facebook Profiles:

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Last week Google launched a controversial new feature on local Place Pages - a list of nearby businesses that promotes local competitors on a business’ Place Page, even if that business has claimed their GLBC profile.  With this move Google has perhaps decided that the Yellow Pages industry is totally off their rockers - many [...]

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Not sure if GOOG is manually deindexing Google Place Pages or if this is just the algorithm at work - often new pages rank well and then disappear for a few days - but some of the Place Pages I referenced in yesterday’s post on Google Place Pages SEO are now gone:

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Last week saw the launch of Google Place Pages which Google described as “a webpage for every place in the world, organizing all the relevant information about it.” Nothing like a modest goal to scare the crap out of everybody else in local search.
According to Greg Sterling Google was not going to be indexing Place [...]

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