2018 Ranking Factors Report Emphasizes GMB and Reviews

Share this:

Damian Rollison: The annual report’s main takeaways are clear: to rank competitively for local searches today, you must focus your attention on three areas: one, providing Google with as much relevant local content as possible; two, pleasing your customers, pointing them to where they can review your business, and responding to their reviews; and three, creating a useful, relevant local landing page or website with authoritative backlinks.

How Content Partnerships Have Made Yelp a Data Amplifier

Share this:

Damian Rollison: It became clear to me, during Yelp’s presentation at the recent Brandify Summit, that the company has become a data amplifier. Here I’m making use of Gib Olander’s helpful term for companies whose data finds its way into a multitude of consumer-facing channels. In this column, I break down the significance of that state of affairs for hyperlocal marketing.

Amazon Furthers Embrace of SMBs with Storefronts

Share this:

What Amazon has done is create a channel for the entrepreneurial impulse of small business owners that would appear to sidestep local commerce completely. But has local really been removed from the equation?

The Quantitative Evidence That Reputation Management Works 

Share this:

At times, the research findings published in our industry seem a little suspect. But in one vertical in particular, there’s a body of academic research that speaks to exactly the kinds of questions we want answered about reputation management—namely, does online review monitoring and response really make a difference to a business’s bottom line?

As Local Search Enters the Voice Era, Three Content Channels Dominate

Share this:

You’re well covered today on the three top voice platforms if you have strong listings on Google, Apple, and Yelp. If you want to do even more, make sure your Bing listings are up to date for Cortana (note that Yelp reviews show up here as well), and submit your listing info to Here and Foursquare in order to be found in Samsung’s Bixby interface.  

10 Ways Apple Can Rebuild Maps to Become an Innovator in Local

Share this:

As Apple relaunches Maps, I’m eager to see underlying map data improve, but I’d be even more interested if I knew Apple had a roadmap to improve the local data layer. Here are some things Apple should do if the company truly wants to move beyond its second-place status in local.

How Not to Respond to Reviews: 10 Common Pitfalls

Share this:

Contrary to the popular saying, all publicity isn’t good publicity. It’s quite possible to go about review response in a way that does more harm than good. Listed below are 10 common practices that won’t do your business any favors and are arguably worse than no response at all.

The New Face of Reputation Management: Photos, UGC Rise in Prominence

Share this:

As non-review content grows in prominence, brands and small businesses with be forced to reckon with it. Like reviews, such content both reflects and shapes a brand’s reputation. Unfortunately, many brands are still behind when it comes to engaging with local reviews, so these new developments will represent an even heftier challenge when it comes to crafting an effective and scalable strategy. Brands who neglect UGC in local will suffer greatly in comparison with those who learn how to engage.

People Are Talking About You: The Hidden Value of User-Generated Content

Share this:

Simply put, insights gleaned from reviews can help you do business better. Though reviews may contain bias of various kinds, they are still the best source you can find of detailed feedback from real customers.

Should Local Businesses Ask for Reviews?

Share this:

Reputation management services should focus on helping businesses understand what consumers are saying and engage with reviewers by responding. Unbiased review content is a true goldmine for the brand who works with a reputation company to glean deep insights about consumer sentiment offered by consumers themselves for free.

With Data and Local Guides, Google Maps Stays Ahead of the Rest

Share this:

Justin O’Beirne marvels that, with the AOI initiative, Google has figured out how to “create data out of data,” meaning that AOIs are a mashup of 3D modeling and data extraction from images. Looked at more broadly, this is not the only example where Google has built features on top of features within the Maps universe.

Google My Business Looks to the Future

Share this:

Aditya Tendulkar is about as close to the source as you can get when it comes to the strategic direction of Maps and Google My Business. We asked him a few questions about the quick pace of feature releases in recent months and the new openness Google seems to be showing toward listing management companies and crowdsourcing.

Facebook Local: The Launch We’ve All Been Waiting For?

Share this:

Last week’s rebranding of its Events app as Facebook Local could be Facebook’s long-awaited foray into serious competition with the Googles and Yelps of the world for market share in local search. Meanwhile, another Facebook local product, Marketplace, has proved to be a sleeping giant.

The New Local Ecosystem: An Interview With Darren Shaw

Share this:

As of this year, the task of updating the Local Search Ecosystem has been handed to Darren Shaw of Whitespark, who also inherited David Mihm’s other well-known brainchild, the Local Search Ranking Factors report. Last week, Darren released Local Search Ecosystem 2017, a bold departure in visual design and a much-needed update to the last edition, from 2014.

The ABCs of Reputation Management for Brands

Share this:

Every multilocation brand today has a social media agency or department, and most, though not all, are running some type of local listings management program, whether internally or with a partner. But plenty of brands are neglecting to do anything about online reviews of local stores.

Understanding How Google Measures Store Visits

Share this:

Even though ecommerce is growing and brick-and-mortar retail is arguably in the midst of a slow decline, 90% of consumer dollars are still spent in physical stores, and the intent of Google’s store visits data is to help demonstrate the efficacy of multiple online touchpoints that might drive consumers into a store.

Foursquare Data Shows Up Today in More Places Than You’d Think

Share this:

It’s remarkable to see how often Foursquare data is popping up today in the apps that garner the most consumer traffic and press attention. These votes of confidence would seem to solidify Foursquare’s position as the forefather of natively digital location data.

2017: A Year of Experimentation for Google Local Search

Share this:

For marketers and local businesses, it’s always a challenge to keep track of the search giant’s frequent shifts in policy in policy, procedure, and terminology. This year has been especially dizzying, though to those paying attention, many opportunities are presenting themselves to reach out to customers in new ways.

What Will Amazon Do With Whole Foods?

Share this:

Whole Foods will represent a brand-new challenge to the company that has come to define online commerce. How can shopping in a physical store be disrupted and transformed by the same kind of thinking that created the world’s biggest virtual marketplace?

Snapchat Expands Its Foray Into Local with Snap Map

Share this:

Pinterest and Snapchat both are turning digital space into a closer analogue to physical space, where we look for visual cues to understand the world. In different ways, both apps are collapsing the distance between virtual and real.