Local Search

How to Create Fiercely Loyal Customers Close to You

By Staci Wood - Apr 15, 2010 - 10 Comments

Recently, our very own Anita Campbell hosted an online webinar titled, "Loco for Local: Get Fiercely Loyal Customers Close to You," sponsored by Intuit. Anita shared tips she'd requested from a panel of 11 small business experts on how to get loyal customers close to you and your business. Each … Read More

4 Practical SMB Uses For FourSquare

By Lisa Barone - Apr 14, 2010 - 12 Comments

Trying to ignore FourSquare in 2010 feels a bit like trying to ignore Twitter in 2009 - it's impossible. And trying to do so should be considered at your own risk. FourSquare and geolocation marketing is everywhere and it's all any of the bit tech sites can talk about. The problem is, trying to … Read More

Google LBC Change Benefits Home-Based Businesses

By Lisa Barone - Mar 30, 2010 - 10 Comments

One of the biggest and most long-held complaints with Google's Local Business Center was that it forced home-based business owners to make their home addresses public if they wanted to be included in Google Maps. Naturally, this made some people uncomfortable. Thankfully, last week Google … Read More

Google Adds New Features to Place Pages, Is It Enough?

By Lisa Barone - Jan 19, 2010 - 8 Comments

In September Google released Google Place Pages in its effort to create a Web page for every business on the Web (and, of course, take away a little steam from Yelp). Last week they offered up two new features to help make the service a bit more interactive and useful for users and business … Read More

More Trouble In Google’s Local Biz Center

By Lisa Barone - Jan 13, 2010 - 23 Comments

Another week brings some more troubling news for small business owners and the state of their Google Local Business listings. There are two somewhat concerning stories that have sprung up as of late that you should be aware of. If only so you can make sure you haven't been affected. Here's a … Read More

Google Favorite Places Sending Customers Away?

By Lisa Barone - Dec 22, 2009 - 4 Comments

If you were one of the many small business owners confused that your Google Favorite Place decal was sending people to the wrong location, fear not. The problem should be solved within a few weeks and you don't have to do anything. Inside our recap of Google's new mobile search offerings was … Read More

10 Things You Should Have Done to Make Your Google Business Listing Great

By Vedran Tomic - Dec 17, 2009 - 31 Comments

With over 80% of people using search engines to find local information, it is impossible to imagine a brick and mortar business that couldn't benefit immensely from local search. On the other hand, having no local search presence could potentially end a local business. According to comScore/TMP, … Read More

Yahoo Makes its Search Results More Local

By Lisa Barone - Dec 17, 2009 - 6 Comments

Though sometimes it may feel like it, it's not ALL Google, ALL the time in the land of search. There are other search engines that your customers sometimes use to find you. Engines like Yahoo. Or Bing. Well, earlier this week Yahoo made it easier for searchers to find local businesses by … Read More

Google Releases New Mobile Search Features

By Lisa Barone - Dec 9, 2009 - 6 Comments

Google's been on a bit of a "new feature" kick this week. So far this week heard about real-time search, personalized search, Google CEO Eric Schmidt's thoughts on Internet 'privacy', and news about Google's new mobile search service. As you can see, there's lots of new Google stuff to report on, … Read More

New Study Helps SMB Owner Analyze Local Search Data

By Lisa Barone - Dec 2, 2009 - 4 Comments

Local reviews and citations are critical to helping your SMB site rank in the search engines' local algorithms. We've heard this countless times. But is it just raw numbers that matter or does the quality of the review site domain play a part? Is there more that goes into it? These were the … Read More

The Four Corners Of Local Search

By Lisa Barone - Nov 17, 2009 - 9 Comments

As I previously mentioned, I was lucky enough to spend last week attending PubCon Las Vegas with some extremely smart search marketers. One of the sessions that really stood out for me was the Local Search and Mobile Optimization panel. During the presentation, one of the speakers, William Leake, … Read More

Google Updates, Re-Updates Quality Guidelines

By Lisa Barone - Nov 10, 2009 - 9 Comments

Google got all the local search experts talking last week with the release of an updated (and then re-updated) set of Business Listing Guidelines. Google hopes the new rules will help cut down on the amount of spam popping up in local search. But have they made things even more complicated for … Read More