Video: Last Week in Local March 18, 2019

Mike Blumenthal

Mary: Google took down ads on roughly 1.2 million pages, 22,000 apps and 15,000 sites for violating policies around misrepresentative, hateful or low-quality content. Google, we need even more diligence from you!

Mary: @JoyHawkins alerts us to a new feature that enables her to add an event directly to a knowledge panel from the Google Maps app.

Mary: Phil Rosek makes the case for all of us to fight spam in GMB.

Mary: Kendrick Shope explains that selling’s a skill like any other, and once you learn it and become really good at it, your business is going to change forever. If you really want to up your sales game this year, focus on these five selling strategies.

Todd: Tom interacted with Yelp on Twitter about their new Yelp Verified program to offer a badge to legit licensed in home service providers. Problem is that “basically forces businesses to pay to prove their license is valid so they can have the badge or else consumers may not trust them.”

Mike: Andy Simpson created a video/recording of the new Duplex restaurant reservation feature of the Google assistant showing how the booking attendant works for both the caller AND the restaurant.

Mike: This is a feature that works really well for businesses that can’t easily capture their customer’s email or sms number during the transaction. Think a restaurant that puts the call to action on the table top or even a home service provider that leaves a card instructing the end user to text the number to start.

Mike: All agree that links are a critical part of improving rank in Local, particularly in organic but there is a growing body of practitioners that note that the idea of “link building” emphasizes the wrong thing… the business should be thinking about how to increase its visibility and brand awareness in front of its online audience.

Carrie: Pinterest & Kroger announce a way to tie Kroger’s first party data into the Pinterest ad platform. Brands will be able to expose customers to new products and connect with Kroger’s millions of customers on Pinterest.

Carrie: Michael Wallace reporting on twitter that Google is adding “suggested posts” to GMB interface. Mostly consists of excerpts from reviews. Great way to mix in content for posting.

Carrie: Sometimes KP in the sidebar of a branded search doesn’t show the “Ask a question” widget even if the category is eligible for Q&A. If this happens, go to Maps & Search, widget should be available there – ask a question. This forces the branded KP to show the Q&A widget.