Video: Last Week in Local November 19, 2018

Mike Blumenthal

Google is preparing to roll out a new feature that will allow users to leave comments on search results. Does this sound as crazy to you as it does to me?

From Noah Lerner: Get a free Google Data Studio rank tracker template (the Holy Grail) to help you track your website’s Search Rankings from your Google Search Console Data.

Jaime Pitman shares his thoughts on SABs in the SERPs in light of a new Bright Local study.

Tune in on Thursday, November 29th from 10am–11am Pacific for a live breakdown of the Local Search Ranking Factors survey with Darren Shaw and Dr Pete!

Local organizers in Toronto have united to push Google out of their government as a leading privacy advocate resigns from the project. This is the critical conversation of our time as everything  becomes wired.

Cavoukian, the privacy advocate, “learned last month, however, that third parties would be able to access identifiable information gathered at Quayside. “I imagined us creating a Smart City of Privacy, as opposed to a Smart City of Surveillance,” Cavoukian wrote in her resignation letter”.

Some interesting real world tests of how small businesses can profit from AVs…

With advertisers exiting at a higher rate, Google creaming them on the review front, this author thinks Yelp’s influence is on the decline.

Google has launched a new portal at web.dev that aims to help developers build modern capabilities on their websites and apps. The portal lets you run an audit against your website and scores it against benchmarks for performance as well as standards for progressive web apps, adherence to best practices, accessibility and SEO.

Google My Business is currently rolling out the new “built from the ground up” Google My Business App, designed to allow merchants to work on the go.

A good summary of how Google is likely using sites like BBB in the context of trust and visibility.

“While I don’t think that Google uses a site’s BBB rating as a direct ranking signal, I am completely convinced that they use a large number of signals to determine which sites users can trust.”

Welcome to an overview of the rules and regulations surrounding online business reviews on Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Better Business Bureau, Yellow Pages and Angie’s List.

A good reference post that will be updated on an on-going basis.

Hey everyone, We’re happy to announce that we’ve made improvements to ensure that your Insights data is more up-to-date.

February 6, 2019 – Santa Monica, CA – come join top minds in Local Search & SEO and gain new insights into what’s working with Google – from ranking to conversions and tracking – with a lot of stops in between!

Early Bird pricing is now available.