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.;
Last Week in Local is now available as a podcast. Sign up here for your regular Local Fix. What better way to spend your drive time?
Amazon in deal with Marriott to make Alexa a ‘virtual concierge’ in hotel rooms – Search Engine Land
Source: searchengineland.com
We will see more of these sorts of deals as hotels look to leverage voice to individualize guest experience.
I love it when a hotel allows me to login to my NetFlix account and I am sure that Alexa users will find this useful
I just wonder what cost does the loss of privacy incur?
Opinion analysis: Court expands states’ ability to require internet retailers to collect sales tax – SCOTUSblog
Source: www.scotusblog.com
A good analysis of the legal issues in this case. This has been a long time coming, Amazon already is there. It’s the many other online companies that will now have to start collecting sales tax.
The major beneficiaries of this ruling won’t be Mom and Pop retail but the Best Buys and Walmarts of the world.
I am not a big fan of sales tax but if it is going to exist is should apply equally to everyone.
Get verified to manage your presence on Google
Source: www.blog.google
Google is finally making it easier for people, organizations, sports teams and more to get verified and manage their presence on Google.
If a Knowledge Panel is wrong, Google will start giving owners the ability edit it.
Five Years of Google Ranking Signals – SEO by the Sea ⚓
Source: www.seobythesea.com
A great summary of the local and entity patents that have come out in the past 5 years.
Red Hen Yelp listing becomes net battleground – BBC News
Source: www.bbc.com
The restaurant’s action against President Trump’s press secretary kicked off a battle on its review page.
Whatever you think about the owner’s right or not to do this, it makes no sense for the discussion to fall to the review sites.
Yelp was quick to catch the abuses. Google took a day but finally caught up with and removed the review commentary. Facebook? Nobody home on that front.
Schema Markup Generator (JSON-LD) | TechnicalSEO.com
Source: technicalseo.com
These tools have long been available for MicroData but this one looks like it does a good job with JSON-LD as well.
How to Add a Call Tracking Number to Your Google My Business Listing | CallRail
Source: www.callrail.com
A good summary of the techniques that you should follow in implementing call tracking with Google Local.
I have been recommending the technique for 3 years and over thousands of locations have experienced no problems.
Google Confirms the Removal of Anonymous Reviews
Source: blumenthals.com
Google has confirmed that anonymous reviews have in fact been removed from public view. Their statement to me: “We do not allow anonymous reviews today and we’ve removed legacy anonymous reviews”.
The real question is why does it take a month for them to say it?
Want to subscribe to our podcast? Now you can: Subscribe here.
