Last week in local 10/23/2017
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 Oct. 23rd, 2017. This week features Mary Bowling & Mike Blumenthal.
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.
Last week in local 10/23
Time has become the new currency in retail as much as saving money..It’s thinking about how we can create a more seamless shopping experience… When something is bought online and attempted to be returned in the store, customers … expect can come back to the store and return it. We didn’t appreciate how sophisticated we had to be.” Walmart gets that reducing retail pain is a competitive advantage that Amazon has and that they need to develop.
“Sidewalk Labs, one of dozens of subsidiaries, including Google, that falls within the Alphabet conglomerate, announced on Tuesday that they would be launching a project that would see the redevelopment 12 acres of southeastern waterfront in Toronto. Within the area it develops, private cars would be banned; streets would be served by autonomous vehicles and freight robots moving in underground tunnels. Intelligent signals would manage traffic on pedestrian-friendly streets; buildings would be designed to be highly flexible, constructed using modular units that are produced nearby”.
Is there any private data they would not know?
Amazon Is Testing Its Own Delivery Service to Rival FedEx and UPS – Bloomberg
Amazon will oversee pickup of packages from warehouses of third-party merchants selling goods on Amazon.com and their delivery to customers’ homes, the people said — work that is now often handled by UPS and FedEx. Amazon could still use these couriers for delivery, but the company will decide how a package is sent instead of leaving it up to the seller.
5 Reasons Why Bing Is Still Important to Your Seo Strategy – BrightLocal
Or not.
Yext begins to verticalize local business listings syndication with ‘Yext for Food’
They started in the medical citation veritcal and are now moving into others.
Survival of the Fittest in the Local Search Ecosystem | MomentFeed
Video of a Panel Presentation at Engage on Super Competitive Local Markets
PayPal launches a payments product designed for marketplaces, platforms and crowdfunding sites
A brief history of Google’s most important local search updates
A quick run down on the major local search updates from Wesley Young.
How to Create a KILLER Strategy by Spying on Your Competitors
Great deck by Joy Hawkins with some valuable Google Local tidbits.
Expert Ebook – Build A Better Business with Complaint
Businesses should focus as much time on complaint resolution processes as lead gen or sales processes. The ROI, documented in this ebook (Mike’s first), of complaint resolution is significant and offers huge upsides for both the business and an agency helping them.
Local Guides: Google’s 50 Million ‘Feet on the Street’
Google’s primary local crowdsourcing exercise has grown from 5 to 50 million users over the past 18 months.
Video Deep Dive: Google’s utilization of crowdsourced data – Local University
How did the program get started and what is its impace
At Google Local Expert Reviews May Boost Local Search Results – Go Fish Digital
Google is looking to rank local search results based on local reviewers that have shown category expertise in a given market in a an effort to remove the “noise” of reviews.
Video Deep Dive: Categories and Relevance in Google Local Search – Local University
Great convo with Joel Headley about how Google understands categories and local relevance.
An easy booking button for businesses on Google
Google has added a booking function to the GMB dashboard for salons and health. Making adding appointments and tracking results from the GMB much, much easier.
Biggest drop in Facebook organic reach we have ever seen
As all posts by pages are moved from the newsfeed to Explore Feed, reach will take another big dive. It’s pay up or don’t be seen time at Facebook for the SMB.
Markets with home service ads: Service-area businesses are coming back to the local results
They went missing from the 3 pack but now SABs that are not advertising in the HSA are back.
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