Why is Buying Links a Problem?

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

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 ā€“ oneĀ from Gyi, one from Andrew Shotland at SELĀ and another from Jon Henshaw on MediumĀ  ā€“ and they got my mind buzzing. Google has never really been one to give away free traffic and make things easy for SEOā€™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.

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Google Adds “People typically spend” in Knowledge Graph

  People Typically Spend X Ā 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

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 ā€œinformationā€ they would be providing. Turns out, itā€™s a good deal of information, 7 sections in total.

Hereā€™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:

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2015 Year in Review

 

localseo

Itā€™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 wonā€™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. Letā€™s just jump right in with some of the bigger happenings.

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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, Iā€™ve been attempting to analyzeĀ 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. Iā€™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, ā€œmom and popā€ 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.

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Local Stack Pack Pushes Organic Down the Page

 

Crystal Lake Dentist
Crystal Lake Dentist

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 StackĀ [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 FinderĀ [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 shownĀ [tweetthis]Zooming in on the Local Finder causes a reduction in listings shown via @brianbarwig[/tweetthis]

Let’s go deeper.

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Local Finder now with Organic Listings

Think You Have Google Figured Out?
Think You Have Google Figured Out?

 

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 isĀ G pulling the information in the Local Finder Organic section? Below are screenshots of test results.

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