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My Caveman Painting of a Local Search Engine
Fine, I guess our cavemen ancestors didn’t have search engines to help them find the closest woolly mammoth watering hole or the finest maker of custom wooden clubs this side of Bedrock. I’m afraid I...
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12-Week Action Plan for Google Places Visibility
Unless you’re Arnold, furious bursts of action alone probably won’t get you very far. You need a plan for the action. This is especially important if you’re trying to get your business visible in...
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Microsites for Local SEO: the Pros and Cons
Some business owners think the best way to rank in many cities in the local search is to have many websites. That’s a losing strategy. They build microsites – by which I mean a bunch of small,...
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12 Points Your Customers Should Know Before Writing a Review
You know you need to encourage customers / clients / patients for reviews. If you don’t, you’re stunting your local visibility and your ability to get the phone to ring. Easier said than done. Your...
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Local U Boot Camp in NYC: New Local SEO Event
The Local U crew is putting on a new event for business owners and marketers who want to learn the ropes of local-search marketing. It’s called the Local U Boot Camp. It’s a one-day event in New York...
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My #1 Local Citations Tip: Do Another Round
A recent conversation with my LocalSpark amigos Darren and Nyagoslav got me to thinking: Yes, there are dozens of things to remember do when working on your citations. I offered 43 bits of advice in...
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How to Cultivate Hearty Local SEO Genes for Your Business
If you’re opening a new business or considering some changes, can you make your business itself local-search-friendly? Can you bless yourself with an inherent advantage in the local rankings – like...
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Hijacking Google’s Local Knowledge Graph
I was just going about my business, monkeying around in the local results. Then something caught my eye: Given that Google just started testing green review stars, I could only draw 2 conclusions: 1....
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What’s Missing from the Google Places Quality Guidelines?
The rules governing Google Places (or “Google My Business”) have never quite done their job. They’re thick, short on examples, and wide open to (mis)interpretation. The Google Places Quality...
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When Can Digging for Competitive Intel Help Your Local SEO?
People often ask me what kinds of competitive fact-finding I think can help their local SEO efforts. My answer usually is, “Not what you’d think.” The theory is solid enough: you want to know why...
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Who Stretched Google’s Map?
Here’s a question that’s relevant to my post from last week on competitive-intel: Which of your local-search competitors is most worth learning from? One obvious answer would be, “Whoever’s #1,...
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You Can Incentivize Google Plus Reviews…Just Not in the Way You’d Think
It’s bad form to offer customers hard incentives to write you reviews. That includes money, products, work, massages, Starbucks cards, Chuck-E-Cheese tokens, or anything else of tangible value. On...
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Mining Your Online Reviews: 25 Nuggets You Can Use to Get More Local Customers
A good review means it’s Miller Time and a bad review is just a black eye – right? No. You’ve got a little more work to do. The better you understand your reviews, the better you understand your...
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Ultimate List of Review Widgets and Badges for Your Local Business Website
What good are your reviews if nobody sees them? Whenever possible, you should show them off on your site by using a review “widget” or badge. Many review sites offer them for the taking. But review...
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Apple Maps Local Business Category List
Apple has finally given business owners (and SEOs) a self-serve way to add or create listings on Apple Maps. You can do it at MapsConnect.Apple.com. For over two years there have only been workarounds...
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How Long Can a Google+ Review Stay Filtered? At Least 2 Years
I’m a jerk. Someone wrote a nice Google+ review on my business page in 2012, and I didn’t thank him until today. ‘Course, it would have helped if I knew about the review. It had been filtered for...
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Local Citation Audit Tip: Use the New Sitelinks Search Box
One benefit of Google’s new sitelinks search box: it can help you save time on finding messy local citations. See what I mean? Just type in the name of the site and search for your listing(s) from...
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Using the Sitelinks Search Box for Your Local Business
I don’t think anyone’s talked about Google’s sitelinks search box in the context of how small-to-medium local businesses can use it. It will probably never be a big part of anyone’s local SEO efforts....
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10 Reasons to Get a Google Business View Photo Shoot
Since 2010 Google has let business owners hire a “Google Trusted Photographer” to come to their store or office, take a bunch of photos, and splice them together into a virtual tour. That tour is...
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User Behavior Affects Local Rankings. Now What?
First, go check out Darren’s slides. After you pick up your jaw, come back here. The two presentations were an unofficial duo that kicked off the Local track at State of Search 2014. Want to know how...
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