Video: Last Week in Local – Feb 18, 2019

Mike Blumenthal

Mary: @GregSterling unpacks Google’s Local Guides’ AR beta test for walking directions for us. I need that!

Mary: @SterlingSky provides us with the details on how to deal with addresses for SABs on GMB. Hint: it’s messier than you than you think.

Mary: @PhilRosek scares us with all the ways evil folks can possibly mess with your GMB listing!

Mike: One more retailer bites the dust. I will miss the signs that used to say: Help Wanted. Payless. Unintentionally transparent?

Mike: You can not be punished for internal anchor link Internal link penalty.

Gary also said that there is no such thing as a penalty for internal link over-optimization. He said, “you can abuse your internal links as much as you want AFAIK.” Focus on the basics.

Gary really stressed that SEOs and webmasters should stop obsessing about such detail and focus on the basics, calling things like rank checkers and “silly updates” a waste of time.

Mike: Google appears to be adding selected 5 star review content labeled as “testimonials” to some GMB websites. Clearly a test as it is on a very few sites.

Mike: Feature that has been on mobile, reply to reviews from Google Maps now moves to the desktop in an effort to engage SMBs.

Mike: Google goes deeper with reservations, allowing a customer to see whether a certain size of party at a specific time directly in the pack results rather than forcing the user further into the reservation funnel.

Mike: A great summary of why and how to respond to reviews. Also provides guidance for developing a plan when you just can’t respond to all reviews.

Mike: David Mihm and Mike discuss the value in Google Posts even though they’ve become less visible within business listings.

Carrie: Great webinar last week from Joy Hawkins, Ben Fisher and Jason Brown on fighting spam and the best ways to go about it.

Carrie: Majority of small business owners think a recession is coming – how this might affect local search & SEO is unknown – but if SMBs feel a downturn, sometimes their first instinct is to cut everything – including marketing retainers.

Carrie: Google MyBusiness has added verbiage to their “rules” that actually helps us SMB marketers a lot. By clarifying that an office must be staffed BY YOUR BUSINESS STAFF it helps us convince the virtual office offenders that using the Regus/Davinci staff to answer their phones, etc, is not kosher.

Carrie: Google appears to be testing the delivery of ads in Google Assistant results. If you have the type of business that is going to rely heavily on Google Assistant – it may be that you can’t afford to consider ads moving forward. Seems to push any organic down and show the ad first.