Every week we bring you a brief 15 minute video and the links of the best articles in Local Search. OK. It’s not always 15 minutes but we are never off by more than 10 minutes or so.
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Google Update November 2019 – Search Engine Journal
Source: www.searchenginejournal.com
Mary: Strong evidence for a Google November 2019 Broad Core Update. Those that know say, “Hold your horses!” Read @martinibuster ‘s round up.
Unexplained big drops in GMB rankings – Local Search Forum
Source: www.localsearchforum.com
Carrie: Big grumblings about a google update that is affecting a lot of local businesses. It doesn’t seem to just be focused on Local, though. Also, Joy reported that she’s seeing much of what changed get reversed the next day. Don’t panic yet, it could just be some fine-tuning that turned a dial too far for a few days.
Capture leads with Google Ads latest ad extension test – Search Engine Land
Source: searchengineland.com
Mary: A new AdWords extension enables lead capture with a contact form. This should make it easier for some businesses to compare the ROI of AdWords vs that of LSAs.
AlsoAsked.com: Discover and visualise the questions people are asking
Source: alsoasked.com
Mary: An “Answer the Public” type tool to help you make sure your content is answering the intent of your visitors by more deeply exploring the questions they are asking.
Google My Business Limits Businesses To 20 Service Areas
Source: www.seroundtable.com
Mary: Google announced it is now limiting the number of service areas a business can list to no more than 20. This is a big problem for small businesses in local area.
Influencers Must Make Business Partnerships Obvious to Followers, FTC Says — Even if They’re Not Getting Paid
Source: money.com
Mary: The FTC just released guidance on how social media influencers on Instagram and YouTube should handle disclosure of ads and partnerships. This will be pretty tough to enforce IMO.
Google Q&A Drops 55%. What is Going on? | GatherUp
Source: gatherup.com
Carrie: Questions are disappearing, reappearing, disappearing – they’re still available as suggested answers, but aren’t navigable from the Q&A feature. Nobody’s sure what’s going on with that.
9 Essential Local SEO & Listings Management Tools
Source: www.searchenginejournal.com
Carrie: A very good list, happy to see Whitespark at the top – In my opinion, they’re the gold standard. Bright Local’s citation burst tool is my 2nd choice. A few on this list I’d never give my contact information – so make sure you do your own research before using.
Technical SEO Competitive Analysis – Niki Mosier at Optimisey
Source: www.youtube.com
Carrie: Video from the Optimisey conference of Niki Moser of Two Octobers talking about technical competitive analysis. If you’re a tech. SEO nerd, or want to be one, watch this – seriously.
Crafting Expertise, Authority and Trust with Entity-Based Content Strategy – Jamie Alberico – SMXL 2019
Source: www.slideshare.net
Carrie: Jamie Alberico gave a presentation at SMX Milan about creating an entity based content strategy. I’d have liked to see the whole talk – but her slides are really good and available on Slideshare. What I really like is the step-by-step walk through how to identify entities and create the content that converts around what you know about that entity married to your target audience. Super great stuff.
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