Local Search Updates 10/12/2012

Have you heard?Mobile optimization is critical for local business websites!
I’ve been recommending this nice (free) tool to businesses owners during my local internet marketing seminars for several months now.
Today I noticed a video on Google’s Mobile Ads YouTube channel promoting it – thought I’d share…

Retailers own the local experience with customers. But the brands they sell have a stake in local targeting, too, typically supporting it via coop advertising. Other methods to get in front of local customers are less dependent on their retailers.
Brands can work with sales-related promotional media that rely in part on feeds, such as ShopLocal; they can pay to rise the top of search ratings in Google Shopping; or they can support companies that track local inventory, such as eBay?s Milo…

Our BIA/Kelsey events are intense things to develop and produce. We love to do them. The next one is ILM West, which is Dec. 4-6 in Los Angeles.
The programming for these don’t come out of thin air, of course. To keep them fresh, and on top of the latest industry trends, our analysts build relationships via their research; and also attend other events — especially vertical and regional shows…

Update: Google not only changed the output of the review content but they changed the interface at the time of review creation to have users select from the descriptive phrases as well. See photo below.
Last week at Getlisted Local U Advanced in NYC, Googler Joel Headley noted that “descriptive terms (poor, good, very good excellent) are going to be integrated into Zagat review interface more going forward”…

Earlier this summer, Google removed a large number of residentially located service area businesses (SAB) from the index for not hiding their address. While Google was trying to clean up the index, a number of  these SABs were removed in error. It turned out that Google was unable to restore many of those erroneously removed to the index…