LOC@L SEO GUIDE

My post on Bizible’s new local search ranking factors study is now up at SearchEngineLand. You can also get more detail on the study and the results on Bizible’s blog. As mentioned in my SEL post, Bizible claims the study is scientifically valid and while in general I liked their approach, I can think of [...]

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My latest post, 5 Tips For Responding To Negative Customer Reviews Online is now online at Search Engine Land.  I made this little chart for the post outlining some of the different types of review management tools offered by some of the top local review sites:

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Al Hanzal of Local Search Marketing-St. Paul pinged me with Do Incentives Hurt or Help in Getting Online Customer Reviews, a response to some of my posts on the subject. “If the customer or the public online sees your incentive as a direct payoff for completing a customer review, negative consequences can follow. Break the [...]

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Since my customer reviews post on SEL seemed to be of interest, thought I would post this textbook example of how to respond to a negative review: Click on the image to enlarge or check out R.J. Hidson Photography’s Place Page: Remember, when responding to negative reviews your prospects are the real audience. Thanks to [...]

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My latest Locals Only post is up on SearchEngineLand: 5 Tips to Get More Customer Reviews: An excerpt: Some tips for asking customer reviews: Don’t offer incentives. A percentage of your customers will do it for free. If you offer to pay your top brand ambassadors, it’s possible they will get turned off, which could [...]

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Mike Blumenthal dissects Google Places’ latest redesign: According to Mike: “They include a strong call to action (review, upload photos) and clear sense of priorities as to what is important going forward – even coupons now have a higher visibility - more user generated content, more understanding of your social circles intent and a greater desire, [...]

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I haven’t pontificated on last week’s changes that removed most of the third party data from displaying on Google Place Pages – I basically agree with David Mihm’s assessment of the situation – this is an interface update, not an algorithm update. This article by FT.com implies that Google removed 3rd party reviews from Place [...]

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I have been hearing reports from a variety of sources that over the past few days more rich snippets have started to show up in Google Places. Using rich snippets on your site to get your content into Place Pages has been a hit-or-miss affair – mostly miss.  At SMXWest, Google’s Carter Maslan told me [...]

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Mike Blumenthal has some concerns re Google Places’ new user review feeds: When was the last time you heard a reviewer ask for an RSS feed of their reviews? Well maybe some reviewer some place did… but then I suggest you follow Google’s instructions and go find it. Instead of attaching it to the obvious place in [...]

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Lior Ron announced today that Google is dumping the HotPot brand for its local reviews system and rolling it into Google Places. It’s a good move and I am guessing an indicator of more product coherence from GOOG as a result of Larry Page becoming CEO. I was always confused by the HotPot brand. Most, [...]

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