Having correct and consistent online business listings and gaining positive reviews in those listing venues are an absolute must for obtaining higher rankings in the search engines these days, especially for companies who provide ‘local’ services such as practitioners, contractors, attorneys, repair companies, etc, or who sell products locally, for example restaurants, auto dealers, etc. Continue reading
August Report on “Google’s Mobilegeddon
It is now 4 months since Google launched it’s new algorithm nicknamed “Mobilegeddon”.
The impact of this launch is still being studied as time goes on by SEO Analysts, and Online Marketeers, and other research sources in this industry. It is my continued goal to provide research results to businesses who might otherwise lose touch with what is going on with the Internet as they might be too busy running their own businesses and day to day issues that take up all their time.
I still see complacency occurring among web site clients that it was much to do about nothing. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. Here are some interesting findings as I continue my research on this subject. Continue reading
When is a Duplicate IYP Listing Not a Duplicate?
In the world of online business listings there exists different definitions of what is a ‘duplicate listing’. Internet marketing professionals may view listings in a different light than an internet yellow pages (IYP) venue or a data aggregator might. That is understandable, since we each have different reasons for working with the data contained in said listings.
Some people understand the importance of not having incorrect/duplicate business listings in existence, however it appears that some venues or business owners seem to think it is OK for a business to be listed more than once in a particular business directory. Continue reading
Adding a Puerto Rico Business to Online Business Directories & Major Aggregators
What do Localeze, InfoGroup, Factual, Acxiom …. and Yahoo Local have in common? They don’t seem to support Puerto Rico based businesses. For a typical United States ‘mainland’ client, we would use our standard tool set to publish and/or correct online business listings, however, for companies doing business in Puerto Rico, this IYP correction task gets more complicated. Continue reading
Google To Release Responsive Mobile Update – Is Your Website Ready?
Google is set to release a new mobile-friendliness algorithm update on April 21 that will impact the mobile search results of websites that aren’t responsive. Is your site responsive?! If not, it may be time for you to upgrade. Here are a few resources for you to check out from the Google Webmasters themselves and Moz who’s a leader in Google Algorithm updates. Continue reading
What Yext Does NOT Do For Your Online Business Listings
The YEXT Service
Is Yext, alone, enough to fix your online business listings once and for all? Using Yext to correct your company’s name/address/phone (NAP) discrepancies on internet yellow page type websites has many advantages. In a matter of hours your proper business info can be synced on at least 40-50 venues with another 10-15 venues corrected within a few days or a week thereafter. However, there are a few reasons why you should trust your business listing submission, correction and optimization work to professionals instead of taking a DIY approach and using Yext alone. Continue reading
Why is it important for your company’s online directory listings to be correct & consistent?
Remember back in the day, for $500 a month, you’d get a name, address and phone number in the Yellow Pages . . . just one little sentence . . . $500 bucks a month! But you paid that because everyone used the phone book back then, right?
Well, nowadays, nobody is using the phone book. Everyone is searching online and there are hundreds of different online phone books out there. Yellow Pages is still one of them, but the big ones now are Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and then everybody else. Continue reading
How to Add a Business to Google Local when the Street does not Exist on the Map
From time to time we have clients for which we need to create a Google+ Local listing for a business at a newly constructed location. Sometimes the new construction is located on a new street that does not yet exist on Google Maps.
In order to have a verified local business location on Google Maps, it is necessary to input the correct street address in the Google Local Business dashboard. One may also need a verification postcard sent to the location when phone verification method is not available. Continue reading
Removing Spam Google+ Local Listings & Fixing Hijacked GMM POIs
When you type in a search for a local service or product in Google, you would expect to see a list of various providers in the area returned in the search results. Sometimes, however, these results are hijacked or tainted by spammy looking local listings, which can cause issues for the other, legitimate, local businesses.
Some spam listings not only dilute the search results, but can also completely change the type of results that Google displays. If Google feels a particular search is a ‘branded’ term, such as a company’s name, it will return results focused more towards that particular company, such as it’s website with the corresponding G+ Local listing information attached to it and other relevant pages about that company below it (such as its LinkedIn or Facebook page or YellowPages or BBB listing.) Continue reading
Using Google’s URL Removal Tool to Get Outdated Business Listings Unindexed
How can you get outdated internet business listing URLs removed from Google’s search engine results when the actual listing is already updated with new information?
Google suggests using the following methods to remove/block a page from their search engine results pages (SERPS):
- robots.txt
- meta “noindex”
- 404 page
But what happens when you don’t control the website or internet yellow page (IYP) venue in question does not use the above suggested methods? Continue reading