You have probably heard that Google is beginning the full roll out of their new “Google Search Plus Your World” feature in the coming days. While it is interesting that you will now be able to see your both your own and friends’ pictures and posts in search engine results, let’s be honest and admit […]
For businesses, local marketing usually deals with the people that they wish to include: Those living in the target markets served by the business, and those living in markets that the business would like to develop. Time, money and effort is spent understanding who these people are, what they need and want, how to reach […]
For those marketers still holding out on a relevant landing page strategy, here is further proof that landing pages are important components of a best practice paid search campaign. Today Google announced that they are globally rolling out quality score changes that they have been testing in South America and parts of Europe. The changes […]
Coming out of the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle earlier this month, a few things stood out to me as patent certainties… Early June in the Pacific North-West rarely delivers consecutive days of sunshine The conference backpacks are getting fancier every year Advertisers and marketers are seeking, more than ever, the magic formula behind understanding […]
There’s been a lot of buzz leading up to the launch of Schema.org. The first thing that makes Schema.org a big deal is that it is agreed upon and standardized. The second thing that makes Schema.org a big deal is the essence of what it does. Schema.org provides a standard protocol to add more details […]
With the announcement that they will now charge advertisers when searchers click for directions from a local ad extension, Google has taken yet another step in its march toward the monetization of the Google Places channel. Since launching location extensions integrated with a Google Places account, Google has been pushing the product hard with local advertisers. […]
Norm Hagarty, CEO: By now most of us in the directional media industry have heard about TMP’s unfortunate demise. I don’t believe that this kind of turmoil is ever good. It certainly is not good for TMP’s staff, many of whom will face uncertain job prospects (at least in the short term); clients who now […]
Google hasn’t had an easy ride in the social space. Google Wave and Google Buzz were both false starts. There has been speculation recently as to how Google was finally going to crack social media. Today they fired their latest salvo in the race; +1. As with any of Google’s most successful offerings, what works in its favour […]
The Pew Research Center published their annual ‘State of the News Media’ study earlier this month. One of the big takeaways was that for the first time ever more people are turning to the Internet than to newspapers to get their news. This victory was actually a narrow one for Mr. Internets. At the end […]
While the actual ranking factors in Google’s algorithm are widely opaque, through research we can draw conclusions that drive the strategy of our industry. Constant research is essential. I have set out to look at ‘traditional local SEO factors’ vs. ‘new local SEO factors’, in a large sample. Recently, I conducted the following research. Question: Does […]