Lollipop Local

Further to Mike Blumenthal’s Google Local Train Wreck post and Andrew Shotland’s Google and Local SMB post, both talking about the difficulties Google seems to face in effectively serving the local business community, I give you the latest incarnation of the Google Places Plus Local name – Social Local Read more [...]

I found another new feature on Google this week – the ability to log in as one gmail account and then add others so you can be logged in to more than one account at the same time. This interesting new features opens a wealth of possibilities for those of us who have spread our different Google properties Read more [...]

Brafton have alerted me to another great infographic from about search engines and local search. This evolution of local search comes from MDG The advent of smart phones has seen the frequency of mobile searches with local intent grow tremendously over the last year with over 77.1 million such Read more [...]

November 2012 Round Up. My Google Local or Places or Plus or Plus Local page listing – I am totally confused as to what to actually call it in its current state of disarray – disappeared back in September. One day it was there but showing the wrong listing – Suite 1, 103A Leigh Road. So I filled Read more [...]

“But how can I get my happy customers to give me reviews?” Current thinking says that it is extremely important to get positive online feedback in the local listing directories, on your Google Places Page and on your website. However, when I tell my clients that they need to ask for reviews, the Read more [...]

At last, Google have made it possible to easily produce a shortened form of the Google Places page url. Nyagoslav at OptiLocal has alerted me to the fact that, instead of http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/place?pq=lollipop+local&hl=en&cp=23&gs_id=2k&xhr=t&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=2304&bih=1186&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=lollipop+local+in+essex&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=lollipop+local&hnear=0x47d85627fe870dd3:0x4257cb3847ee5079,Essex&cid=9856275402148656621&dtab=2&action=openratings&ei=pXdTToyDFoen8QOK75j-BQ&sa=X&oi=local_result&ct=write-review&resnum=2&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQtwQwAQ, it Read more [...]

Reputation Management has become old hat. It implies reacting to a situation, whereas these days the reputation of a business is the first thing that people see when they search for that organisation on line. We need to be marketing those 5* reputations proactively. Try it – type in a business in Read more [...]

In 2011, the average shopper used 10.4 sources of information before buying – almost twice as many as the previous year and this has led to a whole new way of thinking about the traditional marketing model. In the past, pieces of stimulus like tv and radio commercials would drive awareness of Read more [...]

I have written before about scammers emailing or ringing up pretending to be from Google or Facebook. I have also written about Indian SEO salespeople – or if I haven’t yet, I meant to since they seem to email or telephone me on a regular basis. So it was very alarming to read this post from Read more [...]

Further to my post on Getting Online Customer Reviews, Andrew Shotland of Local SEO Guide says that there tend to be four types of business: The majority, who get most of their business from referrals and don’t bother with online reviews because they don’t value them. Some, who get most of their Read more [...]