Don’t Stop Believin’ (That Google Places Has Potential)
Dear Google Places, This isn’t working out. You’re unpredictable, inflexible, and sneaky, but lately, I find myself spending more time with you than ever. I can’t stand that you’re such an important fixture in my life, but to be honest, I’d be lost without you. I wish that you would [...]
Google Places Best Ever Ratings: Do They Matter?
Have you heard of the “Best Ever” medal for businesses on Google Places? Surely you must have, since it was introduced almost 8 months ago. It’s a great concept, really. In case you didn’t know, you have 10 “Best Ever” medals to award to your most beloved places, from your [...]
Google Places Goes It Alone (with Reviews) – UPDATED
If you weren’t paying attention last week you missed that Google Places has dropped 3rd party review ratings and stars from its pages. That meant for many companies going from a dozen reviews to 0-1 or from hundreds to a handful. Which makes this a big deal. But what exactly [...]
Interview with Cars.com on Dealer Ratings: Part 2
On Wednesday, we posted the first half of an interview with Nick Hummer of Cars.com about how their new dealer ratings & review system is coming along. Here for your reading pleasure is the second half of our discussion. JS: One of the things I thought was interesting is that [...]
Bing Giving More Prominence to Local Review Site Ratings
I really wasn’t looking to do a second post today, but saw something on a bing search that caught my eye: they’re now putting logos for various review sites along with a more prominent rating grade on the sides. Take a look here (click to enlarge): And it’s not just [...]
Ding Dong, Google Tags are Dead
Yes, in case you missed us warning you earlier on facebook, Google Tags died on April 29th. Or, to use Google Places’ terminology, “retired.” That sounds much nicer, doesn’t it? Unless, it’s a nightmare retirement home like Toy Story 3′s Sunnyside Day Care! A silver lining – local and small [...]
Social Media Week, Upcoming Appearances & Facebook Deals
I have a few more gigs coming up in the next couple weeks, so I wanted to pass along some details. As a thank you for reading through this mostly self-promotional post, I’m adding info about facebook Deals at the end, which you will want to read if your organization [...]
How to Protect Your Online Reputation – Ohio State University
As mentioned previously, on Saturday I presented “How to Protect Your Online Reputation” at THE Ohio State University’s Digital Media in a Social World. They’re sending over the raw footage that we’ll be chopping up. In the meantime, if you have 45 minutes or just want to skip through to [...]
What’s Next for Google Places? Reputation Management And…
…putting local SEOs out of business. But that really only concerns us and companies like mine, so I assume that’s boring to read for you, so we’ll skip it. Besides, that’s not really news. We’ve seen this coming for awhile and they even made their AdWords login page more enticing [...]
Mobile Search is the Future. Are You Ready?
How does Google envision the future in 5 years? Google executive Tim Reis recently spoke at at a Pittsburgh Advertising Federation event in Pittsburgh and revealed some of the company’s future predictions. He shared many noteworthy insights: Facts $500 billion in e-commerce purchases last year Number of internet users is [...]
Google Offers Itself as Groupon Clone
Groupon is one of those peculiar phenomenons on the internets in that fits in the usable category. Yes, its coupon format so familiar that I’m fairly sure your technotard Aunt first informed you that it existed. And now can’t help forwarding you 75% off spa deals every Thursday. The other [...]
Cars.com Gets in on Review Game: Will Post Customer Dealer Reviews
The importance and prevalence of online reviews is ever increasing; that’s why we discuss customer reviews so much here. That’s why it was no surprise to see this article from Ward’s Dealer Business about Cars.com entering into the auto dealers review space. They had long been allowing customers to review [...]
How to Lose Guaranteed Business Fast: Negative Reviews on Google Places
I only have a few rules in life. These include: The Golden Rule Never wear white after Labor Day. When I get an email that starts off addressing me as “the Local Search guru,” it’s getting published on the Found Blog. In that vein, off we go with last night’s [...]
FOUND! GOOGLE ADWORDS AUDIT
