Last week in local 4/10
Join Local U for the latest public episode of Last Week in Local, a weekly conversation about the articles that attracted our attention during the past week ending April 10th, 2017.
This year we will be publishing our Last Week in Local video directly to the Local U blog. It will be published every Monday and will include discussions about the events in the last week — strategic and tactical — that affect Local SEO & marketing.
If you have a special topic you would like us to discuss for our other weekly feature, the Deep Dive in Local, or if you would like to be on one or the other of our segments, reach out and send us the topic and your availability. If you are interested in sponsoring this weekly show also please let us know.
Let us know what you think. Welcome to Last Week in Local!
Our weekly discussions are also now available as a podcast as well.
Strategic Articles
We want decisive victories but our attention span wanes in a war of attrition. Apple Pay is just such a war fought in many front (consumers, businesses, payment processors, banks, & credit card companies. And only by grinding it out can you hope to achieve a strong presence – and that is what Apple is doing.
Twitter rolls out new location features in Direct Messages for businesses – 9to5Mac
Hmm the company that should have been first in b to c messaging is now coming in behind FB, Apple & Google with its business to consumer location based messaging platform
Starbucks for iPhone adds iMessage app for sending gift cards with Apple Pay & more – 9to5Mac
Yelp buys Turnstyle to expand targeting and offline attribution capabilities
Yelp looking to expand SMB services.
Siri is Google’s nearest mobile search competitor
Siri was the primary search engine of 13 percent of iPhone owners. This finding is significant because it suggests the long-term, potentially disruptive impact of voice and virtual assistants on traditional “query in a box” results.
Bing has a chatbot answering local search questions
Bing has added a chatbot to help users with some of its local search results for restaurants in the Seattle area. Maybe this is a way for Bing to re-enter the local search arena from which they have been largely absent.
LinkedIn introduces lead gen ad offerings
Transactions are moving to the social and search platforms that users are visiting.Expect more of the same from Google and Facebook
46 Percent Of U.S. Travelers Make Day-Of Hotel Bookings
Being there when the consumer is ready to buy is half the secret. Who would have guessed that procrastinators rule the roost when it comes to hotel bookings?
Tactical Articles
Video Deep Dive: Local Ranking Factors, Making Sense Of It All – Local University
Mary and Mike make sense of the recent research in local ranking coming from Darren Shaw, Dan Leibson and Mike and to create a context for understanding it.
Keeping fake listings off Google Maps
Google makes the claim that their study shows that fewer than 0.5% of local searches lead to fake listings. Hmm….
Spam In, Garbage Out – Why Google’s Recent Paper on Map Spam is Flawed
Mike makes the claim that their study is seriously flawed and is not to be trusted.
Yodle, then Townsquare Interactive, then Yelp. This SMB tried them all. Ended up hating them all including Google. And they didn’t even do anything.
Google Tests Showing Number Of Reviews Left By Reviewer
Submit Any URL To Google For Indexing Within The Search Results Interface
How to Use Your Competition’s “Top Pages” Data to Bolster Your SEO Efforts – Whiteboard Friday
How to Use Facebook Live 360 Video for Marketing : Social Media Examiner
Primarily for larger companies but interesting technique none the less.
Preparing for local reach in a ‘post-rank’ world: Get your data in line
A compelling “vision” of what voice search is like with an almost infinite # of local searches.
Search will increasingly become a digital map of real-world relationships, whether it’s conveying the quality of a product, the details of a service or a brand’s prevalence in the community.
Understanding Google Schema Guidelines: Review Snippets vs. Critic Reviews – GetFiveStars
Too many people are confusing Google’s review mark up guidelines. This post clarifies them.
