Local Search and Location Marketing Demystified

Here is a video we recently recorded as part of the Business Corner series. Des explains why Local Search and Location Marketing is a vital component for many online marketing strategies.

By: Des MartinDate: 23.08.2011
Posted in Google Places, Local Search, Mobile News No Comments »

How does Google create business Map Listings?

People regularly ask us ‘How did Google create a Places (Map) Listing for my business, without my knowledge?’

Here is the best answer we have come across to date, in a post by Mike Blumenthal.

Some of the references relate to the US, just substitute local directories like qype.ie, yelp.ie and whoseview.ie in the piece.

The LSM Team

By: adminDate: 23.06.2011
Posted in Google Places No Comments »

‘Pending Review’ and ‘Retry in several minutes’ Google Places errors

We have noticed several errors appearing in Google Places over the last few days.

The first of these occurs when you try to request a verification PIN for Google Places. The following message, “System error. Retry in several minutes”. This has appeared for several accounts we have set-up and appears to be a widespread problem. Mike Blumenthal has reported this in his Blog. On the plus side we have found that if you leave the account for several hours and return to verify, the issue seems to resolve itself.

The other issue concerns Google Places accounts being set to pending status for no apparent reason. In the cases we have observed, the Places listings still show in search results, but some or all of the citations and reviews have been removed. Worrying for people who have spent time accumulating reviews from customers.

You can determine if your account has been set to ‘Pending Review’ by navigating to the the Google Places dashboard. The Pending status is highlighted in red below.

As of today these Places accounts have not been re-set to active.

From what we are aware Google has not responded to any of these issues. There is certainly no mention of this on the Google Lat Long Blog.

Have you seen any errors appearing in Google Places? We would like to build up a picture of how this is affecting Irish business.

The LSM Team

 

 

By: adminDate: 12.03.2011
Posted in Google Places No Comments »

Local Search News – Monthly – January 2011

We hope the year is going well for everyone so far. We’ve had a busy few weeks taking on new clients who have decided to invest in online marketing . A common trend amongst all the people we have talked so far was that they got very little return on alternative forms of advertising like radio, business directory adverts (hard copy) and local news papers. Small business owners are beginning to realise that it is at least worth testing some form of online marketing.

As mentioned in our last post, we have moved offices. We’re delighted to be moving in with a very talented group of  people in Junction Studios.

We have one concern about our move and that is how search engines will react to it. When it comes to local seo, citations are extremely important. By moving to a new physical address we will also have to alter our citations. Luckily we are staying within the Dublin 2 postcode. We’ve also taken a note of all the local directories and review sites that we’d had signed up to so we can alter them pretty easily. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the effects of the move and will aim to write a post on it in the future.

January 2011 Local Search Articles:

- Rodney Hess wrote an interesting review on a foursquare related iphone app.

- Matt Magee compiles a list of 168 articles relating to predicated trends for 2011.

- Happen to know of any business owners who have had to shut up shop? Well, Miriam Ellis reports on the trials and tribulations of letting Google know about it.

- FourSquare celebrated a 3,400% growth in 2010 and celebrated with this infographic.

- Andrew Schotland conducted some research on mobile marketing and shared it over on Search Engine Land and also on his own blog. Link love going to your personal site Andrew : )

If you come across any more interesting local search articles and would like them included in our monthly round up, drop us a line or connect with us on twitter @localsearchmkg

The Local Search Team

By: The Local Search Marketing TeamDate: 31.01.2011
Posted in Google Places, Local Search, Monthly News Round Up No Comments »

Local Search News – Monthly – December 2010

Anyone who works in the online marketing world knows how important it is to keep up with the latest happenings and search engines updates. We did a quick calculation with our team members and estimated that between all of us we spend between 15 and 25 hours per week reading the many online marketing news websites, forums and industry bloggers. The time estimate depends on work load and whether or not it’s a Champions League week. : )

We’ve decided to publish a monthly Local Search News Roundup of the top local search news stories, blog posts and industry press releases that we have come across in the previous month. If you would like you’re blog post or article to be included please email us the details or find us on twitter @localsearchmkg. Our focus is on local search so please make sure it’s relevant.

December 2010 Local Search Articles:

- David Mihm explains how the quantity of reviews is more important than the quality of them. This was in light of the New York Times article about DecorMyEyes and the now infamous Vitaly Borker.

- Over on the Google LatLong blog, Senior Strategist Brianna Brekke wrote a post that was accompanied by a video on how local search rankings work.

- Myles Anderson from BrightLocal.com shares the findings of a couple of surveys that they conducted on consumer reviews in both the US and the UK. Once you’ve had a chance to read them, it’s worth checking out some of the local search tools that the guys have available and ones that are in the pipeline.

- Matt Magee shares his thoughts on some common misconceptions about Google Places & SEO since the new blended search results have appeared.

- Erica Swallow published two interesting articles on Mashable about small business predictions for 2011.  They can be found here & here.

- And finally Dr.Pete carried out a local search experiment involving the ‘change location’ option in Google to see how accurate it was.

We wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year and look forward to making new connections in 2011.

By: The Local Search Marketing TeamDate: 31.12.2010
Posted in Google Places, Local Business Listings, Local Search, Monthly News Round Up 1 Comment »

Google Hotpot

Yet another new release from Google comes in the form of a personal recommendation engine called Google Hotpot. It integrates the reviews and ratings from Google Places with a personal dashboard. At the top of your dashboard a counter keeps track of your personal rating and reviews and there is also an option to keep track of your friends activity.

Google have indicated in the latest LatLong blog, that your friends reviews will show up in a new section of the Google Places page under “Recommended because,”. Also, if you’re signed in they will show up in Google search results and as well as when searching on Google Maps and Google Maps for Android.

By: The Local Search Marketing TeamDate: 30.11.2010
Posted in Google Places, Google Products, Local Business Listings, Local Search No Comments »

Google Boost

Google announced a new service in late October, Google Boost. This service was initially only available in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago. Based on ‘great feedback’ Google are rolling in out in an additional 10 US locations in November. This looks like an interesting addition to paid search and we thought we should take a look at how it works.

Google Boost is billed as a ‘new online advertising solution to help local businesses connect with potential customers in their area’. Within your Google Places account you will be able to create ads similar to the image below:

Note the top section highlighted in red. Previously this section was reserved for Adwords adverts. Now there is an additional Boost advert.

Google Boost Ads are similar to Adwords in that you only pay on a per click basis. The ranking of Boost ads are based on relevance and quality factors. It will be interesting to see how Google decides on these factors. Will they adopt a similar system to Adwords where a quality score determines price and rankings. Or will they try something different?

For Local Business, this is one to watch. It appears the plan is to allow smaller businesses to tap into the power of pay per click ads without having to master Adwords.

The LSM Team

By: Des MartinDate: 26.11.2010
Posted in Google Places No Comments »