Video: Last Week in Local November 26, 2018

Mike Blumenthal

Google My Business Insights’ Search Queries is a fantastic tool that helps you understand how visitors are finding your GMB profile. Here, contributor Ben Fisher explains how to use them to inform your on-site content and ads strategies.

The 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors survey is in! See what the top experts in the field of local SEO have to say about what’s affecting rankings most and where you should focus your efforts in the coming year.

The new “company town” – the mall as a manufactured urban experience. Fascinating that US land policy allowed the destruction downtowns with Malls and now we are in the process of privatizing these “new” downtowns.

The first, real world view of their new, human sounding process to make restaurant reservations via Google Assistant.

PS In an interesting sidelight note the Yelp icon in the Assistant Knowledge Panel screenshot.

Mike Blumenthal and David Mihm: In the case of Q&A, reviews, and the coming sports commenting feature, Google is looking to gain a better understanding of the entity, and in the case of the sharing buttons and the new ability to follow a business, Google is looking to better understand the individual so that it can improve the search experience now and in the future. That would be a very Googly social network.

Mejora tu SEO incluyendo las entidades de las que tratan tus competidores

Google announced a new sign up process for Service Area Businesses that is not “brick and mortar with a checkbox” – I think it’s designed to make the sign up process easier for SABs and, as Mike added, to help cut down on the idea that a SAB has to set up multiple GMB listings to cover their service area.Google recently removed addresses in the GMB dashboard for service area businesses and now they have changed the sign-up process so that businesses can sign…

Dana DiTomasso did a really great whiteboard Friday over at Moz talking about using AdWords to fine tune SEO. From keywords, negative keywords, at text and more. Pretty interesting stuff.

Google also announced a new feature which allows consumers to chat with businesses via the Google Maps app, and also saves that conversation. Consumers and Businesses can look back and see what was discussed.

Sergey Alakov did a quick post about the new Google Local hotel packs. They’re redesigned and have a new look that varies dependent upon device. This shows them moving more and more into, as mike mentioned, bypassing GDS services and encouraging booking through Reserve with Google.

LocalU Advanced Santa Monica Feb 6, 2019 – Pre-Agenda pricing ends 12/2 so now is the time to reserve your ticket at a $400 savings, just $549. Come see experts in Local SEO & Search such as Dana DiTomasso, Cindy Krum, Joel Headley, Greg Gifford, Will Scott, Mike Blumenthal, Mary Bowling, Carrie Hill & Darren Shaw, and Joy Hawkins