How to Rank in the Local Pack Across Your Entire City (Study)

I did some Local SEO research on how to rank in the Local Pack across your entire city, not just from your office location. It was published on the AttorneySync blog today. Here’s the gist of the study: Often a business will spot check their rankings in the Local Pack or organic to get an idea … Read more

Review Snippets in the Local Pack

Analyzing Review Snippets in Local Pack

Review Snippets in the Local Pack 7
Review Snippet in 2nd listing

Recently, I’ve been noticing more and more review snippets in Local Packs. Local SEO people have been discussing the new additions to the Local Pack, though there hasn’t been much discussion on what triggers the snippets. I analyzed 6 different niches and hundreds of searches to determine what, if anything, is triggering review snippets to show in the Local Pack. Below is what I found.

Read more

Fighting For Minimal Clicks

brian-barwig-fighting-for-minimal-clicks

The Fight for Less Clicks

I’ve been thinking about this for a while and wanted to get some thoughts to paper, especially since I’m nowhere near my 1 post per month I anticipated doing at the beginning of the year.

I recently read 3 terrific articles – one from Gyi, one from Andrew Shotland at SEL and another from Jon Henshaw on Medium  – and they got my mind buzzing. Google has never really been one to give away free traffic and make things easy for SEO’s. Back in the wild west of SEO, there were ways to game the system and rank a website, though G was always cutting down easy ways to rank, attempting to get people to buy Adwords and penalizing websites. The same continues today at an even more rapid pace, as easy loopholes get shutdown, more ads are placed and there is less real estate in the SERP.

Read more

Google Confirms Local and Map Ads

homerfacepalm

Google Local Ads

Today it happened.

At Google’s Performance Summit, they formally announced the “next generation of local search ads” on Google and Google Maps. They also said they would be bringing more “branded and customized experiences to Maps. What this means is anyone’s guess at this point.

Read more

Breakdown of the GMB Help Guide

gmb motherload
The GMB Motherload

Updated: July 20th, 2016

GMB Help

Yesterday, Cori Shirk found the Google My Business goldmine. A few weeks back, I remember hearing Google was going to be adding more information and guides to their Google My Business help section. I was skeptical on how much “information” they would be providing. Turns out, it’s a good deal of information, 7 sections in total.

Here’s a breakdown of each of the sections:

  • Report incorrect Street View imagery
  • View business info live
  • Cant Find business info
  • Info displayed on G+ pages
  • Place Labels on G Maps
  • Info in Knowledge Panel
  • Improve Local Ranking

Lets roll through a few of the more interesting sections:

Read more

2015 Year in Review

 

localseo

It’s been a bit since I last posted – nearly 3 months in fact. Been wicked busy and my brain has been focused on learning the ins and outs of my new gig. This post won’t be anything ground breaking but should be fun.

I figured I should write a 2015 wrap up post since there was a good amount happening last year, not only in Local SEO, but to me as well. Let’s just jump right in with some of the bigger happenings.

Read more

Are Big Brands Being Forced Out of the Local Stack?

 

Google Local in a nutshell
Google Local in a nutshell

Updated July 25th, 2016

It has been over 2 months since Google reduced the Local results from 7 down to 3. Since the change, I’ve been attempting to analyze various items in the Pack – picture sizes, who is ranking, why they are ranking and what factors are keeping the businesses in the Local Stack. I’ve written several posts on how terrible the results are and what a poor experience the Local Stack has been so far. I think Google is doing some things to better the user experience but it still has a ways to go.

I have been noticing more and more small business, “mom and pop” shops, located in the Local Stack since the change and decided to test my theory that big Brands are being pushed out of the Local results.

Read more