News and Analysis
Why More Brands Are Asking for Local Search Data
Google search ad traffic has dropped across all devices, with mobile taking the biggest hit. Mobile traffic has been down an average of 24% since the pandemic began in February. Brands have been adjusting their digital strategies to account for the shift, including changing up their search ads with enhanced location targeting and more relevant keywords.
But achieving that high level of optimization requires a type of local search data that isn’t easily accessible through Google alone. That’s created a hole in the marketplace that the intelligence platform Adthena is looking to fill.
Retail Embraces Omnichannel for the Holidays
Rather than focusing on one platform or tool, retail brands are embracing everything necessary to engage with customers across multiple touchpoints. That could have a major impact on the way shoppers interact with their favorite brands in the coming weeks, and depending on the results, it could lead to changes in the way retail marketing is handled in 2021.
Commentary
A Probing Look at Local News Comes to Some Disturbing Conclusions
To accurately gauge the quality of digital local news and assess its impact on communities, you would have to do what no one has wanted, or dared, to do. You would have to look at enough websites, enough stories and videos, in enough communities until you were glassy-eyed. Researchers behind a new study did just that.
Survey: Identifying Best Practices in Reputation and Review Management
Multi-location brands that use reputation and review management to manage local marketing and advertising are more likely to say that their marketing efforts are effective, according to Street Fight’s latest survey. Analysis of the survey identified several related strategies that correlated strongly with marketing effectiveness, including trying to respond to every review and working with a reputation specialist with its own technology.
As Local Search Enters the Voice Era, Three Content Channels Dominate
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.
Latest Posts
Case Study: Bake Shop Owner Finds Customers in Local Facebook Groups
What does it mean to run a local business without a local storefront? For Melissa Brogan, owner of The Bug & The Bear Bakeshoppe, it means having to use highly-targeted online marketing strategies to let people know she’s open for business, without getting the marketing benefits that come from having signage on the front of a physical storefront.
The In-Between Stage for Startups: Visions of Growth and the Value of Pivots
The stages of business growth may have no end point, but the opportunities that lie within them are more abstract than they seem. Moz CEO Sarah Bird says that Jeff Bezos’ well-known assertion that it will always be “day one” at Amazon resonates with her, but that financials can cloud the view of that goal.
Unlocking Audiences for Brands: Uniting Client Goals with Demographic Research
Uniting your client’s instincts with actionable data from social media, keyword research, content analysis, and analytics creates a hyperlocal strategy to reach their most interested clients. There are four key strategies for marketing companies that want to take their clients beyond mere traffic increases to high ROI and conversion rates.
Macaroni Kid Pushes Stroller Into Big and Site-Packed Local Parent Space
One of the earliest hyperlocal networks for parents is Macaroni Kid, which was founded by “recovering lawyer” Joyce Shulman and her husband, marketing entrepreneur Eric Cohen, in their community on Long Island in 2009. In this Q&A, Cohen talks about the company’s recent acquisition of also-well-established Stroller Traffic.
Street Fight Daily: Amazon’s Shipping Ambitions, Search Engines Remain Crucial to Local Discovery
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… Amazon’s Plan to Dominate the Shipping Industry Is Taking Shape… Most Internet Users Prefer Search Engines to Find Local Products… Publishers Say Facebook Can Save Instant Articles with Better Data, Subscription Tools…
When Breaking Google’s Guidelines Is Almost Necessary with GMB
A couple of months ago I was helping a physical therapy business on the Google My Business Forum that was filtered out of the local results on Google because of the Possum algorithm update in 2016. In this case, the culprit was a completely different physical therapy business down the street (about a two minute walk away).
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