Video: Last Week in Local May 28, 2019

Mike Blumenthal

Carrie: Who is winning the reviews race. David Mihm and Mike talk about 10 years on from the LSRF results in 2009 on which review sites were important some big players are gone now….some have moved down the list. There were 10, now there are ~2. Google, Yelp. Verticals are still important but pretty niche-specific and some don’t have niche-specific review sites – so you see a lot of Glassdoor and Indeed creeping into page 1 for branded search.

Carrie: Tim Capper write this great guide to getting into the travel guide carousel in Google when a destination is entered. Travel guide consists of 4 areas including Area Overview, Things to Do, Day Plans, Plan a Trip

Carrie: Tom Waddington who is our Go TO for all things LSAs saw that moving companies who use LSAs no longer have to do that extra level of verification to run their ads. Not sure what that means for consumers, as I’ve not heard that this industry has cleaned up their act in any significant way.

Carrie: DBAPlatform acquires LocalFalcon as they announce new pricing to accommodate a higher Google API cost. For agencies that use LocalFalcon a lot, this could be a costly change. They’re moving to a buy credits, use credits to run queries system, which is not my favorite pricing model. We’ll see what the future holds for this tool.

Carrie: Relaunched the training with new (lower) pricing – so if you’re interested in the best local Search/GMB training you can find out there – NOW is the time to get on board!

Mike: Amazon says it will cover up to $10,000 in startup costs for employees who are accepted into the program and leave their jobs. Those who participate will be able to lease blue vans with the Amazon smile logo stamped on the side. The company says it will also pay them three months’ worth of their salary. Clearly, Amazon is still targeting the last mile of delivery and obviously looking for better quality and reliability than they have achieved in the past with sub contractors.

Mike: It’s the latest sign that the federal government agrees with Uber’s classification of its drivers. The Department of Labor issued an opinion recently stating that gig workers like Uber drivers are contractors ineligible for minimum wages and overtime pay.

Essentially until there is a regime change in Washington, “gigi” workers are screwed.

Mike:  With the new support, an iPhone will know how to read a specially-encoded NFC tag (that can be as inert as a sticker) and automatically show the Apple Pay purchase interface when a user holds their device near it. No third-party apps or other set up required.

Apple is clearly looking to provide ways to a simpler, friction free way to get to the payment in the real world. Point your phone at that parking meter and you are done!

Mike: One potential area of interest for acquisitions is software firms that help public relations firms work with news organizations better, Mr. Levin said. Companies can increase their ranking in Google’s search results by getting links in articles published by authoritative publications.

OK, what private equity firm talks about how they are going to spam Google with all of the cash that SEMrush now has?

Mike:

Google’s combining all its travel planning features under a site called Trips

Google now lets you order food without a delivery app

All of these announcements include the further integration of Google Pay into the local ecosystem. If they can’t get uptake with their Android users, they have no hesitation to increase uptake on their own site by making local more transactional.

Mike: A whole range of ideas to make sure that your new content gets the search audience it deserves, faster.