Archive for the SEO: Local Search Category

Here’s some news which business owners attorneys probably haven’t seen anywhere else yet. I was in a fresh Chrome Incognito window on desktop earlier and saw an interesting test that Google was running on July 29, 2021. Google was displaying the Map to the right hand side

On December 2, 2019 Google announced that in November they released what they call the November 2019 Local Search Update and that the rollout was complete. If you weren’t aware, in November 2019, Google local results and Google Maps results were way out of whack. I was

A personal injury lawyer in Louisville Kentucky I am tracking recently lost all of their Google My Business pages. I’m not sure if they know it or not. The loss occurred in late April, 2019. Since then, I have heard of several other businesses who have had

In December 2018 a wave of automated robocalls began hitting business owners across the USA. The Robocallers pretend to be Yelp. This is called an “Online Listing Scam”. The call: Click here to hear the audio of the call I received: The call I received came in

If you weren’t aware, Google’s local 3 pack is heavily influenced by keywords. 99% of the time, this is not a factor; businesses just use their business name and the chips fall where they may. Aside from keywords, the main factors to show up in the local

In a move than very few business owners will ever even notice, Google+ Brand Pages are disappearing. Warnings (not) sent in March 2018 Apparently, a small handful of business owners received a message via email in March 2018. Most people did not receive this email. In fact,

Anyone doing keyword research is bound to eventually discover a few keywords which people when searching for nearby businesses such as restaurants, coffee shops, gas stations, hotels, grocery stores and even law firms such as “Near Me”, “Nearby” and “Closest”. Armed with this knowledge many people set

Adding a business to Apple Maps is a straightforward, easy process. Or is it? What happens when Apple won’t call your phone number to verify it? iOS and iPhone users who go to visit your business may use Apple Maps. To list your business on Apple Maps,

Your business name, address, and phone number (on other sites) do not affect your placement in Google Local packs. Today, I finally had enough time to sit down and type out some facts on this confusing topic along my thoughts just for you. 🙂 Maybe at one

On December 11, 2017, I discovered something new in Google’s local search results and also in the Maps results – reviews are displaying for some types of businesses. This appears to be a test at the moment, so who knows if it will roll out to all

The Google Local Results are called a variety of things – the Maps Results, the 3 pack, the Snack Pack, the Trifecta, you name it. They are constantly changing. On November 22, 2017, a significant change took place affecting personal injury lawyers. Please keep in mind this

During Holidays such as Labor Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving and Memorial Day Yelp and Google give business owners the ability to set “special hours”. They both added this feature around late 2015, back when I wrote How to Add your Business’s Holiday Hours to Google Maps. Since many

Today I spent a little bit of time poking around in Bing’s local results. I rarely visit Bing although I do drop by from time to time to stay on top of how they are ranking what and to check in on their local results. Looking at

Today I was punching in a very random search and noticed the local pack down at the bottom of Google’s search engine results page (SERP). The local pack popped up underneath position #8, with 2 more organic listings underneath the pack. I was able to duplicate this

The Bing Business Bot is here and it is likely only a matter of time before Google rolls out their version of a chatbot which will likely be called something like the Google My Business Chatbot or Google Places Chatbot. Who knows! I do wonder if it

A Yelp”Active Cleanup Alert” is displayed by Yelp when Yelp’s user support team sees signs of controversial, media-fueled activity on a business page. The Active Cleanup Alert prevents users from leaving reviews and directs Yelp users to post any and all thoughts on “Yelp Talk”, Yelp’s open

I have been documenting here the recent changes taking place in Google Local 3 Packs this year. As of March 16, 2017, I am now seeing on desktop what I previously only noticed in Mobile search results: images in the local pack. Here is a screenshot I

I have written about the new images appearing in local packs quite a few times now. Google first began testing this in January 2017. They also began testing “4 packs” (3 local results + 1 ad) in mobile search results this year too. Now I am finally

Google is again experimenting with the local 3 pack and testing images in mobile search. The local results have historically displayed images for hotels and restaurants but I have seen it popping up for other local businesses here and there. This was first discovered by me back