Why is Buying Links a Problem?

July 19, 2018 by Brian

Early last week, Jon Christian dropped a story about Jayson Demers promoting his own clients with links he dropped into Forbes, Entreprenuer, Inc and others. There was shock and horror from people outside of the digital marketing industry. Look at how a portion of the public (and our President) currently treats reporters and journalists. Add … Read more

Why Local SEO?

January 16, 2020May 30, 2018 by Brian

Why Do I Do Local SEO? I get asked this question from time to time – Why do I do Local SEO? My answer is fairly simple and can be summed up in four points. Local SEO is challenging Opportunity to help small business owners I love #winning Opportunity to dominate Page 1 of the … Read more

Fighting For Minimal Clicks

January 16, 2020October 3, 2016 by Brian

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.

Google Adds “People typically spend” in Knowledge Graph

July 20, 2016July 20, 2016 by Brian

People Typically Spend X Minutes Here This weekend, I noticed a new feature in the Knowledge Graph. With all the changes/testing Google does on a regular basis, I decided to reach out to Barry Schwartz and Mike Blumenthal to determine if they had seen this new feature before. Turns out they had not. New … Read more

Breakdown of the GMB Help Guide

July 25, 2016April 1, 2016 by Brian

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:

2015 Year in Review

January 17, 2016 by Brian

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.

Are Big Brands Being Forced Out of the Local Stack?

July 25, 2016October 14, 2015 by Brian

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.

Local 3 Pack Gets Phone Numbers and Addresses Back

September 24, 2015 by Brian

A Win for Local SEO

As being reported everywhere now, phone numbers and addresses returned to the Local 3 Pack today.

Local Stack Pack Pushes Organic Down the Page

August 25, 2015August 24, 2015 by Brian

I’ve been doing additional testing on the “new” Local Stack Pack and the Local Finder. Here are some additional observations from my testing:

Organic Listings are no longer listed above the Local Stack [tweetthis]Organic Listings are no longer listed above the Local Stack via @brianbarwig[/tweetthis]
GMB Primary Categories are now showing in the Stack and Local Finder [tweetthis]GMB Primary Categories are now showing in the Stack and Local Finder via @brianbarwig[/tweetthis]
Zooming in on the Local Finder causes a reduction in listings shown [tweetthis]Zooming in on the Local Finder causes a reduction in listings shown via @brianbarwig[/tweetthis]

Let’s go deeper.

Local Finder now with Organic Listings

October 11, 2015August 19, 2015 by Brian

Local Finder with Organic Listings

I wanted to do some testing on the new Organic links showing in the Local Finder which just began rolling out the past few days. These listings are seemingly rolling out live for the whole country after some began seeing them this weekend and even more reported them today. Where is G pulling the information in the Local Finder Organic section? Below are screenshots of test results.