Tag Archives: Google Places

Google Makes Places Recommendations Based On People Similar to You

Google has just announced, via their Places Blog, a new twist to online reviews. For some time now, Google has personalized Places by prominently displaying reviews from people in your social circle (that Google knows about). I’ve written about my belief that this will be very important in the future, as more people review businesses […]

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The Convergence of Local and Traditional SEO (A Quick History)

When you search on Google for something that may be local (a restaurant, dentist, or plumber, for instance), the search engine returns a combination of regular and local results. About a year ago, these were always clearly separate, but have since become less easily distinguished. What’s interesting is that it wasn’t just the display that […]

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Google Places is Focused on Photos: What’s That Mean For You?

I posted yesterday that Google released an update to Google Maps for Android. What struck me about the update was that the very first bullet in their list of features for the app is the ability to upload photos for Places. This, coming right after the desktop Google Places update that also prioritized an “upload […]

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Google Revamps Place Pages, Minimizing 3rd Party Reviews

Yesterday Google announced changes to Google Places Pages. I posted a quick note in my Around The Web section at the time, but would like to dive into it a bit deeper and provide some analysis as well. What’s Changed On Google Places The Place Pages We’ll start at the top (orange edits are mine): A […]

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Review Spam: Will It Be Fixed? (And How To Deal With It Today)

This post was prompted by discussions at Catalyst eMarketing and Blumenthals.com regarding spam reviews of moving companies. It’s a nightmare. You go to your Google Places Page, and see it covered with reviews saying that your business is overpriced, has horrible service, and is pretty much a scam. Sure, not every one of your customers […]

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Google+ and Your Small Business

About 2 weeks ago, Google announced their new social network, Google+. This has been covered ad-nauseum all over the internet, and I was reluctant to write about it. It’s in a limited beta, mostly filled with geeks, and no one knows if it’ll ever have great significance. And you all have plenty of business profiles […]

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Google Moves To Cement Its Place In Local

I highlighted a survey yesterday that demonstrated the gains search engines are making versus other sources of local information. Today Google capped a week of announcements and changes that highlight its commitment to becoming the #1 source for information on local businesses. If Google’s success continues, it will be even more important to your business. […]

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Getting Your Business Listed

Local online business listings help people find businesses – and can affect your company’s ranking in the search engines. Learn how + where to get listed.

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Google: Loving Generic Business Names

When yellow pages ruled the Earth, businesses used crazy names, such as AAAAA Plumbers – because when you’re listed alphabetically, not much beats quintuple-A. You can get around this to some extent by purchasing ads, as most books put the biggest ads first, but the regular listings are usually alpha. Now that we’ve entered the […]

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Don’t Let Your Accounts Be Held Hostage

Linda Buquet at Catalyst eMarketing recently posted a story about hundreds of Google Places listings marked “Awaiting Removal.” A commenter did some sleuthing and discovered that these listings appear to be held hostage by a company called 411 Locals (link to ComplaintsBoard.com). What Went Wrong This isn’t the first or last time we’ll see something along these […]

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