UPDATE: Some of my better-read compatriots have pointed me towards Greg Sterling’s article from April about how Google is using the layout below to appease anti-competition complaints in Europe. So take my theories below as pure entertainment, as it should be. Nick Rink of Smart Local , a UK Local SEO firm, posted a screenshot of this new Google Local SERP this morning on Google+: I can’t find another example of this, or a full SERP screenshot, but I…
Based on the comments I am seeing on yesterday’s post, it appears that the new Google+ Local Reviews Pop-Up has gone global. Since it seems like this is a real thing and not a test, I started looking at it a bit more to figure out the implications. One question that popped up: @localseoguide What do you think this means for the value of Google+ Local pages that aren’t receiving heavy reviews??? — Jason A. Keeler (@jkeys1313) July 31, 2013…
Not sure if I am seeing a test or if this is rolling out everywhere but now when I click on the “[#] Google reviews” link for a business from the SERPs, I am seeing a lightbox type of pop up display instead of being sent to the Google Plus Page for the business. Check it out: Here’s the URL that shows the pop-up. Some initial observations: The default view is a list of the 10 most recent reviews with…
Google Plus links have been showing up here and there in Google Knowledge Graph results, but I think the big G just pushed into overdrive. This morning I noticed Google Plus profiles showing up where Google Knowledge graph data has been displayed on SERPs that target brand queries, along with some new formats. Some of these have been around for a while, but I can’t remember which ones are old and which are new so I am listing everything I…
Jade Wang of Google just announced that your old Google+ Business Page can now be merged with your new Google+ Local page which used to be your Google Places Page. As usual Mike Blumenthal has got the goods to help you make sense of the whole thing. Here’s Jade’s post: For those of you that have created local Google+ pages (with social features) — good news! Today, you can become the verified business owner for that local Google+ page. In…
Matt Cutts’ most recent G+ post: and his latest Tweet: Thing is, the whole “Hobbit-Meets-Google-Maps” thing would probably have a better chance of exposing new users to Google Plus v. the links thing.
I finally got around to implementing rel=”author” tags on my blog. It’s pretty easy to do by linking your Google + profile to your site – Instructions here – and the benefit, at least for me, was pretty immediate. Just by attaching my mug to my URLs in Google’s SERPs, my organic traffic increased 15% immediately. While I didn’t do any serious rank tracking, my best guess is that my rankings didn’t change much, but rather the CTR on my…
And while I’m on the subject, Stever has a great post up on some tips for Encouraging Google +1 Votes for Local Business Websites. Key point for unsuspecting SMBs to take note of: “Forget the new schemes popping up to buy hundreds of plus 1 votes. Those will be meaningless to a local business as it is very likely nobody in that network are local to that business. That and it is likely a manufactured network just to sell +1’s…
SearchEngineLand just published Google Plus Connections Are The New Link, some thoughts of mine on how local search co’s and SMBs may try to leverage Google Search Plus Your World to improve local SEO. After rereading it, it seems clear that as more and more organic results are deemed to have “local intent”, the only way that Google Plus content stays relevant is for users to have tight local networks. If that doesn’t happen, Google’s own quality algorithm should purge…